Kyoutarou despite being the son of the Hi family Yakuza boss, wants absolutely nothing to do with being in the Yakuza. However, his dad just went and got sent to prison for a year, so he’s been having to deal with all his father’s nonsense in his place. In such circumstances, a cool beauty named Kumiko appears before him. She says that she’s his half sister, the secret biological daughter of his father, but because of him being in prison and hence not paying her living fees, she’s come to live with him instead. And bound by family responsibility, despite being annoyed, considering it is his only sister, Kyoutarou agrees. However, Kumiko isn’t like him, in that she very much is what a Yakuza type woman should be like. Furthermore, she’s strongly motivated by revenge. Holding on to the last memento of the man who raised and who she considers her father, the katana Gekkoh, she has vowed to hunt down her parents killer, the man with the centipede tattoo, and kill him. This ends up taking Kumiko into various dangerous situations, which of course Kyoutarou follows her into. On top of that there seem to be political matters going on within the clan, with other families trying to take over the Hi family. And while Kyoutariou and Kumiko don’t have trouble getting along, their relationship develops quite a bit different from a normal brother and sister.
***
This manga has an interesting setting being set around Yakuza matters. It’s certainly not for everyone, with a lot of scenes being too much for me as well and feeling quite awful reading it, but it is certainly interesting. However, beyond that, it doesn’t have much value. The characters are quite shallow and unlikable, and while there is some character development and their relationship development does reach an appropriate end, it feels sort of random and hence doesn’t have much impact. In terms of plot there are two main plot lines that somewhat intersect, one revolving around Kumiko’s revenge, and the other revolving around Yakuza power struggles. The plot line relating to Kumiko’s revenge reaches it’s conclusion, though it feels like a bit of a weak ending. The plot line revolving around the Yakuza power struggle doesn’t reach its end at all, and just sort of fizzles out. The entire plot line revolves around building up a powerful villain that the reader hates tremendously, and then at a point where they’re quite powerful, it just ends without them having been dealt with at all. That is tremendously unsatisfying and a terrible point to end the series on. And lets not even get into the subplots, because with one exception of the subplot featuring Miho, none of the subplots are close to resolved. The art was also rough. The author has a good sense of framing and style, so there were quite a few beautiful shots when he was really trying such as on covers, but as a whole I wouldn’t even consider the art decent.
A manga completely lacking substance with its only redeeming feature being a good amount of nice looking panels.
6/10
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