Title: Astro Royale Vol. 4
Author: Ken Wakui
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 195
Genre: Action, Supernatural
Publication Date: February 3, 2026
The Story
From one battle to another, we witness the fight between Hibaru’s group and Himuro’s atop the ocean platform. We begin with Kuran vs Harumi, where he learns that before accepting Himuro’s drug, Harumi used to be a pro-wrestler named Poseidon, and Kuran was one of his biggest fans. Before their battle, Kuran shows mutual respect. The next battle is Toarsu vs Sou, where we learn a bit about Sou’s past and why she joined up with Himuro.
Finally, we get to the main event of Hibaru vs Himuro, which quickly turned into Kinpa vs Himuro. Himuro is dead serious about getting his revenge against the Yotsurugi family for reasons that are explained in his backstory in this volume. When the battle ends, it immediately transitions into a new arc as we learn that there are six pieces of the Daybreak Ore. Shio is already in possession of two of them, and thanks to Himuro, Hibaru is one. They need to find the remaining three pieces, to Hibaru calls a family meeting.
There, he learns clues to the whereabouts of the other pieces. He splits his team up, but Hibaru heads to Yokohama, where he is looking for someone known as the Yokohama Immortal; however, when he arrives, he runs into an old friend named Hiyohiko, a nerd who helped stand up for Hibaru when they were kids. Apparently, his sister has been kidnapped by the Yokohama Immortal, and he’s demanding 1 million yen for her return. Hibaru seems to know who the Yokohama Immortal is… especially since he also has business with them concerning the Daybreak Ore!
When they finally meet, something seems off. After a struggle, Hibaru finds himself in a situation to obtain the ore, but he must go through the Astro Battle Royale tournament first to get it. Still, there’s just one problem… a major obstacle was also invited to the tournament, too!
Characters
For the first half of the volume, we learned about Harumi’s backstory, with him being a former professional wrestler. He felt that his in-ring injuries piled up to where he couldn’t be himself anymore, and he refused to look weak. Himuro took advantage of that, promising him to restore him to his former glory, but by taking that path, Harumi ended up betraying his very ideals. If you know anything about professional wrestling, this is a subtle nod to how things actually go behind the curtain. I’m sure that you’ve heard the tales about performance-enhancing drugs running rampant in the professional wrestling world, and how many wrestlers have lost their lives over time due to the usage of those drugs. This is kind of symbolic of those darker times when PEDs were expected of wrestlers to maintain their larger-than-life physiques… to continue to look like the superheroes that kids looked up to in the 80s and 90s. While the landscape of professional wrestling has drastically changed since then, it’s still a grim nod to the way the industry used to be.
Next, we learned about Sou and how she was raised in a home with a drug dealer. One day, a pizza delivery guy showed up and killed her father right in front of her. That delivery guy just happened to be Himuro as an undercover agent. Saving her from a life of dysfunction and crime, he decided to use her for his own nefarious plans, and Sou, oddly, was so thankful to him for getting her out of that home that she pledged to do anything for Himuro. What she failed to realize was that she traded one evil master for another, but sometimes, extreme gratitude can blind someone, and that’s exactly what happened with Sou.
Then, we learned about Himruo’s past as well. The reason why he became a detective and the head of Unit 6 was to track down and destroy the yakuza because they drove his father down a very dark path, and that path was all related to Hibaru’s father, Kongo. I’ll spare most of the details so that you can read it for yourselves, but it just boiled down to a very generic revenge plot, and nothing else, though, revenge drives emotions, and emotions become the sole motivating factor to throw everything away for the sake of getting said revenge. That’s what happened here with Himuro, but for him, there is no reasoning with him. It’s either revenge or death for him… There is no in-between, and that is quite sad… and not even mimicking Mega Man with his arm cannon made me feel sympathetic towards him. He was just blinded by rage and revenge the whole time, and that made him quite the shallow villain.
Next, we have a couple of new characters. We have Hiyohiko; however, all that we know about him is what was described in the story section. He’s a weakling, a nerd, but he has a big heart, as he saved Hibaru from bullying when they were kids. Because of that, Hibaru became his friend, and now that they returned to Yokohama, he asked him to save his sister. That’s about the gist of Hiyohiko for now. It’s a simple side character made to drum up some emotions, and it didn’t do the job. Despite asking for help, he is one of those wishy-washy “maybe we shouldn’t be here” type of characters, though. So, there’s nothing really new about his archetype. We’ve seen his kind tons of times before.
We also meet the 8th and 9th adopted members of the Yotsurugi family… Shikaba and Taira. Without going into too many spoilers, I’ll say that Shikaba is the third-in-command, while Taira is his advisor. Shikaba is not on anyone’s side. He’s a loose cannon who loves to fight just for the sake of fighting. I’ll leave it at that because there are some big plot points that he’s tied into… especially when it comes to the Yokohama Immortal, who was just as crazy as Shikaba!
Final Thoughts
Knowing that the series is coming to an end in just two more volumes, I can start to see how things are becoming a little rushed. We learned about there being six pieces of the Daybreak Ore, and with Shio having two, Himuro (and now Hibaru, thanks to their battle) having one, and the Astro Battle Royale tournament offering up a fourth, it means we only have two to hunt for… and Hibaru’s team are already on the case, heading to the other locations where the two remaining pieces are.
This makes things really predictable. If Shio has two pieces, there is a very high chance that either Shio will show up himself, or one of his representatives will show up and win the tournament, giving him three. I can see the next volume ending with that victory, setting up the doomsday scenario of Hibaru only having his one piece, and Shio having three… but then I can see Hibaru’s team get the other two, evening up the score for the eventual final battle in Volume 6. During that battle, Himuro will either get a fourth piece by snagging it away from Shio, or all 6 pieces, ultimately defeating him and living his dream of repairing the world.
Of course, things could go vastly differently, but that’s how I see things shaking out, as it makes the most sense. You don’t want to overpower an already overpowered main villain to the point where a battle against him would be theoretically impossible to win. You need to put your main protagonist in a position to go toe-to-toe with the villain, or find a believable way to overcome the villain if they do end up tipping the scales. So, my idea works out the best, but who knows? Maybe Shio finds a way to end up with 5 pieces, but one piece is just enough for Hibaru to combine with his OP punches to rival 5 Daybreak Ores’ worth of power? Who knows?
We’ll have to wait and see, but either way… what is apparent is that the Astro Battle Royale tournament will lead us into the final battle. That much is a given!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
