Dogs 4

Shirow Miwa – Viz – 2010 – 5+ volumes

This volume gets interesting once again. There are some complicated politics at play in this series, but taking them in a little at a time is the way to go. Badou is the main character here, and we catch glimpses of his past as he tries to dig up information on just exactly what is going on with all the craziness lately.

The cover illustration is pretty great, it’s a wraparound illustration of Badou in the theater that the end-of-volume battle takes place in. The gun, flowers, and popcorn on the back cover is a nice touch too, but I like his expression a lot. I like the art style in this series in general. It’s very high contrast, and while many panels have been stripped of their backgrounds, when the backgrounds are present, they’re fairly detailed, leaving the potential laziness of the other panels looking like a stark mood choice.

I also like the eccentric characters on both sides of the conflict. Badou busts in on a mob boss complaining pathetically about an (admittedly major) injury he sustained in a fight with Badou and Heine. Badou doesn’t find what he’s looking for there, but his sudden entrance means he’s chased all the way to his home base cathedral by that mob, where he yells for Heine and the sword girl, who casually eliminate the entire mob. It’s a pretty funny scene, and I like that about Badou. While the other characters have mostly serious, melodramatic stories and pasts following them, Badou keeps it light and silly while still sticking with the cool action vibes of the series.

There’s nothing light or silly about the snatches of flashback we get while Badou wanders around looking for information. His brother is the one that taught him the ropes in information brokering, and some mystery event killed his brother and took Badou’s eye. Badou doesn’t really dwell on it, but he remembers as he’s gathering information anyway, since he’s currently engaged in the type of dangerous mission he swore he’d never do again. By the end of the volume, we’ve met Badou’s demon from the past, though we have to wait until next volume for an explanation and resolution to the fight.

This volume is mostly exposition, and it does a good job of beginning to sort out some of the more complex information we’ve been getting while taking things slow and employing the light humor and slick style that I’ve come to expect. I’m fond of this as a senin-ish action series, and while it’s not at the top of the list, it’s still worth reading for anyone looking for this type of story.