Dai Dark vol. 6

While the Four Little Shits think they’ve brought the fight to the Photosfere Corporation by heading to their headquarters on the planet Kenzarn, things quickly take a turn.  After Zaha Sanko and Shimada Death split off from Avakian and Damemaru, they wind up in an enclosed space that’s actually a ship.  Not only is this ship programmed to take them back to the home system of Photosfere’s real overlords, the Lighthead Order, the area they’re stuck in is a waste disposal system with it’s own miniature sun.  Shimada may be tough enough to survive it but Zaha is not.  Which means that they’re going to have to team up to form the most fearsome fighting entity the universe has seen in order to live through this.

I may have lamented “Dai Dark’s” lack of direction for a while now, yet things really picked up with this volume.  Not only does the action ratchet up in overall intensity, but it feels like there’s real purpose behind it as well.  Everyone’s desires are clear and the ways in which they conflict drive the story here.  There’s also a lot of struggle on every side of the fighting here, meaning that no one faction ever really gets the upper hand on the other.  Until the last page of the main story in this volume; though, we’ll see how long that lasts.

Better still is that all of the flashbacks spotlighting Zaha’s time in grade school finally pay off in this volume.  While they’ve been entertaining diversions, these stories have always felt like digressions from the main story in the present day.  No longer, as Zaha’s true nemesis is revealed and his reasoning for wanting to destroy Meatball Spaghetti is abundantly clear – even if the means by which he’s still alive strain plausibility even by this title’s standards.  Even with that, and the fact that sometimes the narrative focus can feel a bit chaotic and random here, vol. 6 is still a step forwards for “Dai Dark” as it feels like it’s finally hitting its stride.