Review of Vol.23

General View:

this is maybe the volume which contains most battles in its totality. Most of the argumental lines here are based on the notion of force and the aesthetics Toshio Sako experiments when drawing battles involving impossible movement capabilities and extreme meaning attached to these brute battles. So I am not going over analize these chapters a lot, just cover some of my thoughts regarding characters like Ranko and Bill Craig. The main protagonists in this volumen are the ones currently fighting at the top of the tower right now, so that would involve explaining a lot of what was undergoing while the arc was at its beginning.

Kurama-guma and IDEAL

So, the thing that we can explain here easily is the fact that IDEAL knew about Usogui's bet regarding Karamete at the same time Kurama Rank, a member of Kakerou was noticed too. Ranko is playing with Suteguma. So we can say she is really the first interested in the bets reward before the same Suteguma. We currently do not know what IDEAL wants inside this tower but they are for sure playing for its own conviction.

After defeating Martin (crazy name) Ranko joins the other who are fighting "Caracal". Soon we will find out why people call it like that. Bill Craig has some background regarding past IDEALS missions. We can classify Caracal as something comparable to Rodem from the first arc. An almost fictional state of being in which Bill Craigs obtained an inimaginable power originated by a psyquiatric condition he posses as well as Marco. The power he exerts at this point makes useless any attempt from Leo or Hyouga.

Leader

On the other hand we had Leader's argumental line. I find this volumen in general as a buch of chapters reagarding the subtleties of the main story lines of this arc. It's Ok if try to summarize them, we have:

And I don't remember what else. So about Leader vs Comissar. Apart from the fact that the narrative just put the comissar as a coward and easy target for Kakerou's leader what I think is the important fact regarding Karamete. For Nanpou states that most of the bussiness already accepted Karamete's infiltration. I'll need to explaing to myself about Karamete once more: This is just an strategy in which Kakerou posses power in the form of Alibi from the L-Archive. By possesing this pandora's box kakerou pretends to exert an important influence all over Japan, so Kakerou made a deal with those bussiness. They won't reveal a thing if most of the letters in the alphabet are in the deal. Most are, so this kakerou vs police thing is no longer a priority. Kakerou was only buying time at my understanding.

You're just like a Caracal

Now we arrived to the point in which the power demostrated by Caracal becomes real. Hyougo is killed isntantly after two attacks directed to both hyouga and Leo. I think we have arrived to a common place in this arc. Karma exist. People who harvest bad karma will receive a return in this tower. Hyougo, as well as the others that have died, harvest a life of danger and carnages in the form of Caracal, an irrational expression of this complex web of stories connected through a single thread: The Tower of Karma. I think Ranko perceives this and can only give a single last message to her fang: I am So dissapointed. This is like a two meaning phrase ya know. Ranko is a dominating force, she is strong for sure, but she can't just compare to the danger her life faces so frequently. Even in this situation Ranko finds power in her dominating nature, saying "I am so dissapointed" not only reflects the relation she has with her fangs but also a phrase that commonly appears when somebody does a bad thing. Like a mother: "I am so dissapointed". But in this case the punishment is not simple refuse, but a means to an end. Hyougo disappears. But as narrator says, the only way of give resistance is being someone who did not commit any mistake. Someone as naive as Marco. This is an interesting thing, the very first lesson marco learns at this tower is that he needs to be less naive, less silly, less childish. But Marco is really a victim of his circumstances, marco never choose to be like Rodem. He's a victim of his own material context and he never intended to kill, not like Suteguma, who concludes that if he felt like comitting murder or if he felt like "annoyed", then he can decide to exert that annoying in the form of violence and crime or not. Marco is the complete opposite for he represents that innocence from the very first chapter of this arc, when he askes hyouga kindly for his password or when he offered money to Tatsuki because of his skates. Marco needs to learn something more important than a mere abandonment of innocence but a correct use of his intelligence and make good things because in his will, the will Suteguma finds to be violence, his fate is kindness, reflected always as a smile throughout this whole manga series.

I said the argumental lines here are mere "battle art" but I could understand some deep meaning under the lines forming the muscles and scenery composing the tensions of these fights.

Before contiuing with the main succession of events I would like to narrate the end of this storyline covered in the volume. Marco needs a dramatic change in his being, he needs to achieve wholeness in a way he do not attract bad karma. But facing a monster like caracal is just too dumb for anyone, the only way of defeating Bill Craig's monster is using Marco's monster. Ranko understands this sole notion and she does not doubt in "bite" marco and "inject" her poison to him. With this sole movement we arrived to serious animal fight. A fight in which Rodem is awaken again. Ranko uses the before mentioned flechetter for inducting Marco in the same state as Caracal. And the battle begins, because the only one that can really survive is the one that change himself. The result is the expected, Rodem equals Caracal power and the fight that we get is not only a really exciting one but very sadistic view of a yound and innocent characters who need to sucumb to barbarism because of his conditions.

Imaginary Bulls

Now, in "Imaginary bulls" we see how the last resource of police is send in the most "excentric" way to the tower. I am not so sure about what is the real meaning behind this scene but basically, police offer the two referees to enter and "discuss" things inside the car. By this, Tatsuki basically tells the cops that this fight makes no sense at all since the comissar is being controlled by Kakerou's leader. What is even more important is that Tatsuki refers to those police men as "treasure" and Kakerouis precisely full of treasures. Which tells us that Tatsuki wants to add these guys to the organization since it's easy to understand their organization won't last much after this incident. They obvioulsy refuse to believe that and a battle is inminent. Tatsuki then proposed a deal, if cops survive the fight then they will need to join Kakerou, if not they can access the tower. In this order of ideas the battle is set to be developed inside the car since they dont want to exit the tower nor want to going up the second floor.

This Volumen ends with an extra character, an sniper watching over the top of the tower when rodem and caracal fights. This guy is trembling, saying that he would tell what he reaches to see of this fight, but he fears what the others might say about his sanity after telling exactly what he sees when these beasts fight each other in humanly impossible ways.

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