Author(s): KIBA Koichi

Meet Akira Yusa – a police officer, whose methods (almost as terrifying, as his looks) of dealing with criminals have already blemished his record with a few black marks, and Kilico Sakaki – a 19-year-old college student, whose doll-like appearance certainly doesn’t suggest her working as an assassin for hire. Their paths cross when Akira’s brother – a lawyer involved in a huge corruption scandal – is shot to death in the crowded street by no one other than Kilico. And so the ruthless detective rushes to track down the culprit by himself.

Koichi Kiba was not always pursuing the career of a manga creator; his first passion appeared to be cinema. He devoted some years to amateur filmmaking while still in high school, after graduating from university, and not considering his early attempts in drawing manga attention-worthy, he worked as an assistant director at a studio in Kyoto. But when a one-shot submitted by Kiba for the Afternoon Four Seasons Award – Kodansha's Afternoon magazine competition – in 1995 won a grand prize, the author was offered to work on a weekly series for Morning (another Kodansha's seinen magazine). This marked his debut as a professional mangaka.

Now, to give this manga its due: Kilico does a great job in presenting itself as an action-geared series. I suppose that I wouldn’t be wrong to assume that Kiba’s previous avocation influenced his manga heavily. Case in point: the author successfully employs what could be referred to as “good camera work” if we were talking about a motion picture. The static black-and-white panels emit a strong feel of dynamics and emotion at the same time. Despite some problems with perspective and proportions the mangaka still manages to avoid stiff poses and combine reaction shots with theatrically static scenes simultaneously into a wonderful piece of imagery. However, its visual acumen is all that Kilico’s strong points reduce to.

Thematically, it is supposed to be a plain crime/gangster story featuring a cast comprised of disillusioned cops and cynical, double-dealing criminals. With laconic dialogue that hardly touches on any subject aside from the business which the characters are concerned with and the hunt for revenge serving as the plot's driving force, Kilico had all the makings of a typical yet decent representative of the crime genre. However what ruined the series was the mangaka’s hesitation concerning the path his story should take. Non-existent character development didn’t provide adequate reason to omit the urge to avenge the death of a sibling; the author let that aspect simply slide anyway. Then, with the most crucial plot element gone, he continued with a trait of suppressed traumatic memories, followed by an emotional turmoil – not quite convincing, the more so because the presence of sentimentality in the earlier parts of the story amounted to none.

The story also expends plenty of time on the mafia affairs conducted in the background with some archetypal depictions of cruelty and loose morals. That constituent part, however, fuses entirely with the main plotline after a while, and the general march of events becomes almost indistinguishable from that of a bad melodrama, with the only flaring attribute of what Kilico – the manga, not the female lead - used to be remaining in the level of violence. And the final letdown is the conclusion of the series; was that because the author cornered himself with misguided plot decisions? Or was he actually trying to bring the interactions between the two central characters into a realm of revenge again? In any case, the last chapter turned into a perfect example of an ambiguous ending driving the reader to frustration.

_____________________________________
Download this Manga: here
Discuss this Manga: Other Manga District