Volumes: 1/1 (3 in 1 Omnibus, Complete), In Print
Seinen
Genre: Boxing, Sports, Fighting, Steampunk
Summary: Five years ago, Levius lost both his arm and his mother during the last great war. His mother is still barely alive, but lays heavily wounded in a coma. He had his arm replaced with a steampunk cybernetic arm. Propelled by a vision he has of his mother cheering him on in a special arena for only matches between the top 13 MMA- Mechanical Martial Arts Fighters (Cyborgs)- he resolves to fight his way to the top ranks.
Review: This is the most disappointing manga I’ve ever read. First of all, there’s Levius, our titular hero. His entire motivation for fighting revolves around his desire to be reunited with his mother, where fighting in the arena will somehow make her make her wake up from her coma. This is just taken as fact and never discussed. The manga says he has prophetic dreams and they always come true, but the only example we have is him guessing the shape of the future stadium correctly. Meanwhile his mother, who shielded him from falling debris with her own body, we’re supposed to believe this is what she wants? For her son to fight in life or death matches where fighters leave the arena on stretchers or in body bags?
About ⅓ of the way in, the mangaka seemed to realize that if Levius’ mother wakes up then he loses his entire motivation for fighting, because he has zero character personality other than loving his mother, and the manga would be over. So he introduces two new fighters who are supposed to motivate Levius: one tough guy who is supposed to pass his love of this life or death fighting to him, and the other one is an abused slave girl who was mechanized against her will and he wants to rescue her.
But the worst part is the introduction of a new antagonist, who is a literal evil clown CEO. Named no joke, Dr. Clown Jack Pudding. This joker knock-off is so over the top evil and doesn’t fit with the steampunk world at all, it really ruined the manga for me. It’s ridiculous enough that he exists, but somehow no one inside this crazy manga is bothered by him. He even brags about his misdeeds in public and somehow the spectators are still cheering him on. They don’t even seem perturbed when he decides to try and kill all the spectators for the last match, just because he can. I think they might be cardboard cutouts.
Finally, the mangaka clearly didn’t want to overwhelm his readers with an actually emotionally climatic ending, he decided to leave the story with an ambiguous ending. We don’t even know if the slave girl he wanted to save survives or not. It literally says- to be continued in the sequel, which is Levius est. All we know is that he clears his match and gets promoted to top 13. Was that ever even in doubt?
This series was adapted into an anime, which currently has much higher ratings than the manga, but many reviews mention good fight scenes but similarly poor character writing.
Recommended: This manga has become mildly popular for the artwork and the anime adaptation. The manga has a detailed, western influenced style and a steampunk aesthetic. The artwork is indeed gorgeous but the story is terrible. Read it for the artwork or not at all. As for the anime, it currently has much much higher ratings than the manga, and focuses more on the fights and less on the flat characters, so I would recommend that over this.
Age Rating: Older Teen, mostly for detailed gore.
Related Works: Levius est (sequel/continuation)
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