The transitions of this volume were like a pendulum.
I liked the baron as a character but the series seemed to take a bad twist in his arch. Things got really absurd. For example, the baron kills 26 men after their leader doesn’t have any information on Ryo, and then the baron crazily goes after Ryo, blowing up public areas with his grenade launcher arm.
In that arc, Ryo’s tactics became repetitive. He always seemed a step ahead of his enemies so much that his counters seemed ridiculous. He walks into an illicit casino and manages to beat the casino owner at his own game and goes through the casino trigger-happy. Later, Ryo puts nails in the exhaust of his car that act as a nail gun when he is surrounded. A lot of these counters seemed way too risky to even attempt and frivolous. The baron arc went downhill for me.
The beginning of the next arc seemed like it was going to continue the trend. Ryo finds himself trapped by the Dragon Society’s head and walks away unscathed with 100 hundred million yen after shooting down the society’s harpoon gunners. In a later scene, Ryo shoots straight through the front window of a car to disable Sayaka and her friend from running at him, which causes them to run straight into a pool and Sayaka comes miraculously uninjured from the crash. These risky, albeit enjoyable scenes, just seem arrogant at times.
I know that the absurdity is a signature of the series but it seems to take it too far at times. This calculated, highly risky move by Ryo just seems like it could have been done in a more efficient, safer way, without putting anyone at harm. Kaori and Sayaka could easily have been killed at any point.
I also am a bit disappointed in the direction of the series. It seemed to be taking a realistic view of a Japanese sweeper in the 80s but instead it seems like a Japan full of dandy villains and zombies.
The women have also seem to be pretty dimensional. Either you got Kaori, a rambunctious, tom girl, or you got Sayaka and the nameless women that are serious and just bombshells. Natsumi Azuki was a refreshing exception. I am not trying to write like a feminist but it is a bit repetitive the stereotyping of the women. I may just be a bit bored with it because of the repetitiveness of the risky maneuvers by Ryo.
The series also reached a taboo point for me when Ryo was sleeping in the same bed as Sayaka, a senior in high school. She was also wearing a men’s shirt while Ryo was naked. During breakfast, Ryo remarked that they had too much to drink the day before and they “must have slept together without noticing”. Some other minor taboo portions include when Ryo shoots under Kaoir’s uplifted skirt, which most likely revealed her female genitalia to the stunned harpoon enemies, and when Ryo cut a school girl’s dress after he kneels down to look into the skirt and cites that it’s too long.
Ultimately, the arc with Sayaka saved the volume for me. It brought back that refreshing style that had been lost in the baron arc. I rarely laugh out loud when reading literature ( I can only recall doing so once ),and I laughed twice, the first when Sayaka’s father was intently spying on her when she was trying to seduce Ryo, and when Ryo tells Sayaka that Kaori isn’t an ordinary woman because Sayaka learned that her underlings failed to capture Kaori and were now in Kaori’s possession.
Rating Update 3/12/2019 - 4 to 3 stars. My liking of the sections mentioned, would have earned this volume 3 stars, but I was bored with a lot of it, hence the 3 star rating.
Update 4/9/19- The first half of the volume that dealt with the Baron really does bring down the rating but the later half with Sayaka and the short Dragon Society story equalize the volume to 3 stars.
Update 8 June 2019
With the adoption of my new rating system, a three star rating is befitting. The ending to the baron arc and the Dragon Society issue earned roughly between a two and three star rating and the Sayaka arc earned a four star rating. The average of the volume is around three stars. These ratings are justified through the original review and subsequent updates.
January 3, 2020
Update
I believe that this is a close, 2.5 star-rated book. Because of my slight disbelief at the three star-rating, I have changed the color of the rating from green to red with a grey outline.
February 5, 2020
Update
I do not understand the reasoning in the last update as to why I have changed the rating to red. I have now changed the rating to yellow.
April 5, 2020
Update
I have changed the rating type from 2.5BB to 2.5BBA. I specifically created the 2.5BBA rating type for this volume. Here is its description: "Somewhat like the 2.5BB rating type: “Had some boring two star-sections taking up large chunks but the three star-rated sections barley outnumber the two star-rated sections”. This volume barely reaches a 2.5 star-rating. It’s more of a sum of the whole book, which is why rating the book at three stars feels just as bad as rating the book at two stars. There are also some criticisms of the book that could fall under a one star-rating category that dampen the book, as well as tid-bits of four star-rated content". The one star-rated content could be the criticisms I mentioned in the original review and successive updates, which I am currently unsure whether they fall in the one star-rated category, though I know they dampen the book. I considered the humor in the volume to be examples of the four star-rated content mentioned in the description.
As a general reminder, the first half of the original review is harshly critiquing nit-picky parts of the book before the paragraph starting with "Ultimately, the arc with Sayaka saved the volume", generalizes the good from the Sayaka arc, despite the criticisms. I write this as a reminder not to lower the rating solely because much of the original review is dedicated to criticizing the volume.