Title: Platinum End Vol. 7
Author: Tsugumi Ohba (Story), Takeshi Obata (Art)
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
Genre: Thriller
Publication Date: December 4, 2018
The Story
We open volume seven of Platinum End with the battle with Metropoliman still in full swing. Mirai has Fuyuko by the arm and a white arrow ready to kill her but he can’t pull the trigger. Her virus will kill thousands of people and yet, he still can’t take a single life to save others. That lead to Fuyuko breaking free and, at the same time as Metropoliman firing a white arrow at Mirai, launches several syringes at him. Saki gets in the way in order to take the hit but because Hajime was hit with her red arrow, his love for her causes him to take the hit instead. Hajime dies due to the flesh-eating virus but not before stabbing Fuyuko through the heart with his sword.
With Fuyuko down, Mr. Mukaido’s cancer acts up and he begins to spit up blood. He’s about to be taken to a hospital but says if he dies now, he won’t fulfill his final wish of seeing Metropoliman die. With it just Mirai and Metropoliman left, the two agree to a duel. The rules are no wings, no interference, both people must have their feet on the ground. They will take turns firing arrows at each other. If they miss, then their opponent can come closer and take a shot. This continues until one of them is hit. Mirai will use red arrows because he doesn’t want to kill him while Metropoliman will use white arrows. After some back and forth banter, Metropoliman misses at a decent distance, giving Mirai the advantage. The two are practically face to face when……….. the volume ends!
Argh! Another cliffhanger but I have a feeling that this battle is far from over… especially when the remark is made about not following the rules. Even if Mirai succeeds, Mr. Mukaido’s dying wish is to end Metropoliman’s life with his bare hands… so there’s that factor to consider as well. Ohba-san and Obata-san really know how to pour on the suspense and this volume was no exception to that. Despite that, this volume wasn’t without its faults which I will cover in Final Thoughts.
Characters
There wasn’t much in the way of character development for the majority of the cast as the volume took the time to flesh out Metropoliman’s backstory. He fell in love with a girl named Rea but she ends up falling off of a gazebo and suffers severe brain trauma. She ends up dying because of it and he’s stricken with grief over it because he felt powerless to prevent it. That’s when the angel appeared and told him about becoming God. However, this thought of becoming God was more than just bringing Rea back to life… he wants to make sure everyone was rich and beautiful and to do that, he will kill the disparity of the world. In other words, he will kill the poor and the ugly, leaving nothing but rich, beautiful equality among the remaining survivors.
He truly is a disgusting character with a God complex which is why he makes such a great antagonist. He’s a character that you just love to hate and want to see him get his in the end. Mirai’s soft side; however, will deny us that and that’s the most stressful part of his manga. While I can understand Mirai being the symbol of purity, he’s too pure to where it’s a fault of his character. I just find spineless main characters annoying and this volume turned Mirai’s annoyance up to 11. I don’t mean for him to become some two-faced loathsome human being but he does need to grow a spine and make some tough decisions from time to time.
Final Thoughts
All in all, this was another great volume of Platinum End. As I mentioned, the volume did have its faults and that lied within the artwork. Early on in the volume, during the scene when Fuyuko shot her syringes, they used several pages of slow motion to show things happening in a frame-by-frame scenario. While that isn’t necessarily a bad idea, some of the art was blurred to give an effect of that slow motion and it made the artwork very hard to comprehend at times. Of course, when you are the artist and you’re spending hours on a panel, drawing it bit by bit, you, yourself, can understand what’s happening because you’re putting your mental image to paper but if the reader can’t comprehend it, then what’s the point?
I found myself rushing through those pages rather than trying to take the time to figure it out. It wasn’t Obata’s best example of his skills as an artist but that would be my only complaint in this volume. It seems as if the fight will reach a conclusion in volume eight and if so, where does the story go from here without an antagonist? Either they go the Death Note route and introduce their version of Near for this series or Metropoliman will live to fight another day. Some interesting scenarios at play here but we’ll have to wait and see what the mad duo of manga have in store for us!
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