Geobreeders Chapter 13 Summary
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Geobreeders, vol. 13, by Akihiro Itou - Grade: A
I'm not going to summarize the entire book - there's too much action, and I don't know how many people here are really interested in it. Suffice it to say that Itou is to manga what film is to live action. His pacing and camera positioning is cinematic in nature, and he knows how to draw people running away from stuff that is blowing up. He switches easily from serious drama to comedy and then back, and his characters are well-drawn and easy to tell apart. (Vol.13 was published in Sept., 2007.)
(#49's memory of Ryuu fighting Rika.)
The story: Taba (the male part-timer working at Kagura), Yuka (Kagura's president) and Takami (the cute computer hacker) are in the hospital recuperating from the damage received in the last fiasco. While Eiko (the accountant), Maki (the gunslinger) and Yu ("I'll drive anything that has a steering wheel") are preparing to take the company's boat out to a mysterious island that they've just learned about. Seems that a computer disk that they'd gotten their hands on had contained an earlier, twin version of were-cat Maya, who'd been told that if anything goes wrong, retreat to the island. Taba escapes the hospital to reach the boat, but Yuka is just a little too far behind him to catch up. She arrives at the docks to watch the boat speed off, and then is tazed and kidnapped by a mysterious figure in a black limo. Up to the last minute, she was desperately trying to get the group to stay away from the island.
On the boat, Maya is in shock. She'd mind-melded with the older clone, identified only as #49, and had witnessed the deaths of all of the other were-cats during an incident about 10 years earlier. Ryuu, apparently the gunfighter that Maki had fallen in love with, had been a key member of Kagura at the time, and he was trying to save #49 inside the software protect system. A woman, Rika, who looks like Yuka and is Irie's boss, arrives and puts a crossbow bolt into Ryuu as he throws himself out the window. This is the last thing that #49 remembers before being freed by the new Kagura staff. At the same time, Yuma, Irie (considerably older and more mature-looking as compared to #49's memories) and Kotoi take a Hound helicopter out to a nearby battleship that is commanded by Shimazaki. (Shimazaki had last been seen directing the Self-Defence Forces in the assault against the were-cats occupying a nuclear power plant in Atomic Attack.) Yuma tries to convince Shimazaki to take a software disk from her and use it to suppress whatever it is that's on the island. The crew on the ship are on alert for pirates, and they automatically fire on Yu's boat as it tries to get to the island. There are actually 3 ships in the area and they launch a barrage on the Kagura boat as #49 tries to get Maya to regain consciousness.
Eiko gets cold feet, thinking that this mission is too risky for just following up on something on a floppy disk, but Maki is desperate to learn more about Luger Ryuu, and she threatens to kill Eiko here and now. Yu, dodging salvos from the battleship, asks them to make up their mind, and Eiko backs down. Then, Maya and #49 team up to try to launch an electronic attack against the ships as Yu tries to steer past the incoming shells. Finally, Maya gets one of the ships to launch a chaff missile, leading to the three ships taking each other out, but not before the Kagura boat gets demolished. The team paddle a rubber raft to the island as one of the ships sends out a helicopter with troops after them.
Back in Tokyo, Yuka wakes up from the drugs that had been pumped into her, and fights past a guard with a silencer that had tried to enter her room as she was leaving. Unfortunately, she collapses in the hallway and gets tasered again. When she comes to again, Mihara Hiiragi sticks her head into the room and calls her "sister". On the island, part of the team climbs up a hill to the ruins of an old paramilitary center that used to be the old Kagura headquarters, according to one of the signs. There's a grave marker to one side, with the Kagura dog logo on it, and a burned out bunker that seems to have been destroyed by a bunker-buster missile. The name on the grave marker is "Rika Kikushima". A group of female were-cats, referring to themselves by numbers 1-50, confront Taba and crew. Then an old woman, called "#0", or as she refers to herself "The Founder of Kagura", shows herself and tells the humans to follow her into one of the buildings where she'll answer all their questions. Maki asks if she's the caretaker for the female were-cats, and the woman replies that it's part of the contract she has with Kuro Neko. She starts out by saying that the story could be told as SF, suspense or romance but she'll try to present it as a normal tale. But Eiko interrupts her and asks who she is. The woman very politely apologizes, introduces herself as Chieko Kikushima, and thanks them for taking care of her daughter, Yuka.
Notes:
On the island, Maya is called "#107".
Summary: Geobreeders 13 is action-packed and lots of fun to look at. Highly recommended.
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