Title: Dimension W Vol. 8
Author: Yuji Iwahara
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Publication Date: November 14, 2017
The Story
Dimension W Vol. 8 takes us back to reality after Kyouma experienced his dream sequence. There, Mira and Kyouma are under attack by a coil-powered defense robot. Mira ends up taking it down with help from the digger twins, but Mira is flung towards the nothingness in the tunnel as a result. Right before she’s about to pass through, Kyouma awakens and pulls her out. As Kyouma is trying to figure out what to do next, a damaged Lwai shows up and warns them about assassins on the island… mainly K.K. and Jason Chrysler… who were sent from the American Collector Hero’s League. Apparently, they have a different stake in this matter.
The rest of the volume breaks down into two battles. The first deals with Jason Chrysler taking on Loser. Jason was ordered to take him out due to the fact that he poses an immense threat due to having four numbers coils implanted in him. Because as such, Jason was also given a numbers coil before being sent to the island. The battle between the numbers users is short and unfinished in this volume. Just when the battle was getting started, it shifted focus over to K.K.
K.K.’s main ability is to implant coils into usable bodies and turn them into zombie-like servants. K.K. ambushes Kyouma at Ground Zero and sends his old friend Doug from Grendel after him. K.K. makes his escape when Kyouma reluctantly defeats Doug; however, he doesn’t get far as Lwai cuts off his escape route. Lwai ends up going down, but he tears his own head off his mechanized body just in time for Kyouma to arrive and see it. This makes Kyouma believe that K.K. was the one who did it and it sends Kyouma into an uncontrollable rage which is how our volume ends.
Lots of action in this volume, but little to no story progression as far as the main storyline goes. We do get a LOT of character backstory which explains who some of these characters are and why they are there. Plus, the volume takes past story elements and folds them into the battles that are presented to us.
Characters
K.K. takes center stage for character development, but not in a way where a backstory is being told. It’s more or less his personality that gets fleshed out. K.K. is, for better or worse, a mindless drone. Not literally, mind you, but in the sense that he doesn’t care about anyone’s goals… not even his employer’s. All he cares about is carrying out his orders and nothing more. After all, a true mercenary does exactly that: carries out orders and gets paid for doing so. Doesn’t matter what the orders are, it’s not your job the question them. You carry them out, you get paid, you move onto the next job. That is what K.K. is about, but it’s not him entirely. K.K. is incredibly intelligent and will research every minute detail about anyone and anything involved in his objectives. He knew about Grendel, Kyouma being a survivor, what New Tesla was up to on the island… everything. While the information was precious to Kyouma, to K.K., it was nothing more than a tool to do his job. This really made you feel anger towards him because K.K. is completely heartless in that regard. He doesn’t care who or what he uses, as long as he gets the job done, that’s all that matters to him.
Next is Jason Chrysler. He plays the part of a hero back in a America, even going as far as to sign autographs for little children. On the island, he is essentially K.K. with more personality. Like K.K., he doesn’t question his orders… he simply wishes to carry them out. In this instance, his orders were to stop Loser from getting to Ground Zero. Jason has no tricks up his sleeve. It’s simply a battle between numbers users, although, he does show a little compassion and nobility by allowing Elizabeth to leave the battle area so she wouldn’t get hurt. I guess there is a bit of a hero in him after all. That makes him a bit more likable than K.K., but that’s really not saying much since he’s there to cause upheaval amidst the search for the Genesis Coil.
Lastly, we got to see quite a few emotions out of Kyouma. With his memories slowly returning, he’s beginning to realize what the true purpose of Adrastrea was and what Seameyer was trying to accomplish there. Seeing his former friend turned into a mutated beast ate away at Kyouma and the fact that he wanted to save him despite there being a near 0% chance of doing so just shows how much compassion he truly has. We got to see a much different side of him here and I’m sure we’re going to see his most aggressive side in the next volume after that ending!
Final Thoughts
After the information-packed volume we got last time around, Volume 8 of Dimension W focuses on letting all of that information sink in and gives you a couple of emotionally-charged battles to excite you. By the end of this volume, you really want to see some pretty bad stuff happen to K.K. and there is a good possibility that we will get our wishes come volume nine.
This volume also gave us more insight as to what the true purpose of Adrastrea was. To think that New Tesla had a space exploration division… that was something I didn’t see coming. Apparently, they weren’t working on rockets or anything of the sort, but a teleportation device to transport the entirety of Adrastrea into space, but they never got that far with their research and the accident which caused the nothingness to engulf Easter Island brought an end to those hopes and dreams. Still, this raises more questions than it answers.
That’s one of the best things about Dimension W. It has that hook of answering questions and creating new ones to be answered. It always gives you a reason to keep turning the page and wanting more and more is exactly what I want! Bring on volume 9!
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
