Dai Dark vol. 8

I had a good feeling about where this series was going after it wound up on the planet where Hajime Damemaru had stashed his spaceship.  While he continues to look for it in this volume, Zaha Sanko, Shimada Death, and Avakian engage in their own efforts to track the man and his ship down.  Except that they come up against their own troubles in the form of a monster that has secured Damemaru’s ship for its own needs, which consist of snacking on the perpetual failson’s flesh once again.  Even if it’s able to do that, Sanko and company aren’t that easily disposed of and will likely prove to be more than this latest threat can bite off.

I wish I could provide a more dramatic suspension of disbelief here, but… this is a volume of “Dai Dark” that’s spinning its wheels more than anything else.  The goal is to get control of Damemaru’s spaceship and mangaka Q Hayashida has the main characters of this series do that in a way that doesn’t offer any greater insight into their mindsets.  While it does offer its own bits of fun throughout the volume, including a flashback to an even younger version of Sanko than we’ve seen in the school scenes from previous volumes, we don’t learn anything interesting about his character.

As is usually the case with “Dai Dark,” what we get here is too weird to be truly disappointing.  It still feels like Hayashida is throwing said weirdness at the reader in order to keep them from being truly disappointed while she figures out what to do next.  Let’s hope that vol. 9 actually moves the plot forward in meaningful ways that show how entertaining this series can be when it actually makes an effort to do so.