What started as a battle between good and evil Karakuri Doji is slowly morphing into a team up between all Doji against their mysterious creator, Dunstan. But if you buy volume 11 thinking that Ultimo and Vice were going to launch an attack on Dunstan, you're in for a surprise. Dunstan himself is not even in this volume. Which is good because even though there seems to be some agreement that Dunstan is the real threat, the Doji are about as unified as one would expect from killer robots who have been fighting for centuries and using the space-time continuum as their chew toy.

There is an attack on the good Doji by Vice that leads to all the good Doji combining into their perfect form called, “God Ultimo Frontal Till Dawn.” That is a much tougher sounding name than the combined form of the evil Doji, "Vice: Back From the Dark." There is an interesting comparison to be made between those two names. There’s no God prefix on Vice. Vice RETURNS from darkness. In military terms that feels like retreat. Whereas “God” “Frontal” and “Dawn” might mean that Ultimo is on God’s side and that he’s gonna engage in “single” combat (quotes because combined robots can’t really be single). The moral is—good is more powerful than evil in its directness. That does not just apply to the Doji, but to their human masters as well. Yamato, Ultimo’s master is the most macho 14-year-old male you can imagine.—capable in a fight and named after a battleship!

As with any serialized fiction that outright says “this story is a battle between good and evil," the struggle is made more complex. Totally straight battles between good and evil get boring. There’s a flare up between Yamato and his crush Sayama. She is very dangerous, but Yamato’s love is too strong to dismiss her as evil. What makes Sayama so dangerous? For starters she can alter memories, which is a very scary power. Secondly, she has a major connection to a major character in the series. 

The record company exec who controls the Doji “Rage” is fun. I confess, at first I thought he was an alternate version of Dunstan. Just as Dunstan looks like Stan Lee 2008, the chief music producer of Soney records looks like Stan Lee 1972! I got a good laugh out the “Soney Records” bit and his rant against the shallowness of the recording industry. The fact that he's dressed like General MacArthur on purpose only adds to the overall wackiness of the character. This is one of Ultimo's strongest traits, you can never guess where it's going. It's utterly unpredictable. 

The real star of the three-page riff on the music business is Hiroyuki Takei's drastic change in page layout! In a black and white manga, switching to solid black grabs the reader's attention like a lead pipe to the throat! What a brilliant visual trick!

Volume 11 ends on an an incredible cliffhanger. Considering both Ultimo and Dunstan can manipulate time and Sayama can manipulate memory, I have my doubts we will get an 2 + 2 = 4 ending. I have no idea how the story will end which leaves me very curious indeed.

You can read this very unique manga by picking up Ultimo volume 11 on sale here! 

by Rob McCarthy