Following the rejuvenation of the previous instalment,  Chrome and the gang are now stuck with bodyguards who are guiding them to a mythical location that is also trying to kill them all due to a breakdown in their two-party bipartisan government consensus.  Tensions are high but Chrome is more powerless than ever, both because of his physical exhaustion and because he is not the only person Roue can rely on anymore.  He has to accept these strangers are better qualified for his role as protector and that Roue might be better off this way even if it denies him his own reason to keep living.  This is all established in 5 pages and is more meat than entire volumes have had in the past.

It feels like The Donkey Squad’s infectious optimism is even rubbing off on the author.  Giving up on some of his shading tricks in favour of a clearer art style and more relaxed tone.  The jokes are better, the pacing is snappier and it is all moving towards the hourglass-shaped Heaven Land. Speaking of hourglasses, the ghostly Reis is back in the fold finally acting as the primary villain of an arc after only being a background player in the past.  Alongside her newest assistant Mulberry, who looks like he’s on loan from Digimortal by Tsutomu Nihei.  Mulberry gets a decent showcase for his personality, a particularly dower belief that defying his self-preservation programming and seeking a noble death is the only way to give his artificial life value.  Reis gets far less material and she is one of many sacrifices the story is making at this stage.

I’d praised the competently executed but suddenly introduced internal conflict for Chrome last time. Heart Gear really just barrels past that turmoil and blitzs through the introspection stage to get to a point of clarity.  I can’t say I’m opposed to it. Volume 6, What You Want, raises the action higher and increases the tempo.  Everything rocketing faster and faster towards the ultimate finale.  Takaki still feels invested and happy to be here. He is however showing a firm commitment to ending this series sooner than later.  Even opening the book by blunting questioning the difference between man and machine so directly it feels like he is finally ready to reach some type of conclusion, instead of beating around the bush.

Resolving everything in the seventh and final volume will be difficult.  The size of the case has tripled so all of those characters needs resolutions of some kind.  Can Heart Gear pull it off? We’ll find out next time but the previous two volumes have been operating on a higher level so it  feels more likely that the final 8 chapters will pull it off.

Following his weakest instalment with the best of the series, Tsuyoshi Takaki’s Heart Gear returns with palpable excitement and newfound confidence.  Starting with a more controlled and measured short story than any prior example;  Roue summarises the plot so far and highlights her existential dread of living in a world that has moved on and left her behind as the last living human. While her robot companions will endure she is now conscious that she is both the person that will draw danger to them and the only one among them who will not live forever. 

Unbeknownst to Roue, that danger is already on its way. With Heaven Land’s leadership divided on how to handle Roue it’s been decided they will make a game of it. Conservative leading R deploys her special squad to wipe out Roue and her companions while D orders his retrieval team to bring them to Heave Land unharmed. The future of the world is now just a test of strength and luck with Roue trapped in the middle.

My review for Volume 3 noted that Takaki’s approach to Science Fiction was barrelling towards becoming pure fantasy.  Volume 5 shows this does not have to be a bad thing as planting itself firmly in a different sub-genre and moving the action to plains and woodland gives the series a shot in the arm.  Takaki’s newfound freedom allows him to make Ash, the Chrome’s main enemy this go-around, dress like a an JRPG hero complete with sword the length of his body and a dragon (explicitly not a robot, he just has an organic dragon). Followed by the retrieval team’s commander cosplaying a samurai and the suppression unit featuring a mechanical mage.  With more fighters involved and actual strategy in plan the action is improving.  

Chrome has a personality now.  Two as it turns out.  His newfound doubts over his unicorn-themed berserker state do not feel like a natural extension of what has occurred previously, especially was his berserk state is barely more violent than he normally it, but I’ll take it. The combat robot frustrated with his own existence and how he keeps encountering other units who are content to destroy themselves for pleasure instead of finding reasons to live.  It took over 30 chapters but now both lead characters have some type of interiority besides genre cliches. Having an evil dark side threatening to take over your body is a cliche but it is a way of presenting internal conflict. And as sudden as it is Takaki presents it well.  

Time of Your Life makes a fitting title for Heart Gear’s Volume 5.  While the Valhalla arc dragged itself across the finish line out of obligation, this new Heaven Land arc has a real vitality and energy to it. Incongruous with past events, perhaps, but more engaging and exciting than before. 

Completely surrendering to his monomania, General Wodan throws out all subterfuge and resolves to just crush his problems in a big robot.  With an insane general rampaging the responsibility of stopping him and ending his Valhalla falls to: a human girl, her robot protector, a living camera and an opposing commander with seriously bruised special shock-absorption padding.  

The first half of Volume 4, Born to Lose, is the conclusion to the Valhalla arc. It unfortunately suffered due to real-world circumstances. Takaki was seriously ill during this period so it is not surprising that the ultimate showdown with Wodan is underwhelming. Especially compared to Chrome’s pervious fight with Hildr. While perfectly understandable why this would be the case it is still a disappointment.  Especially as Wodan’s total abandonment of subtlety removes his only interesting traits in favour of just being a loud obstacle for our heroes, one that refuses to muster up the creativity to say anything entertaining as he fights. 

Takaki’s health issues also explain why afterwards the series slows down to softly reset before moving into a new arc. During this acclimatisation period Takaki’s discussions of artificial life focus less on abstract ideas and instead focuses on the possibility for humans to transcend the limits of health to become lifeforms able to pursue their ambitions forever.  The section feels a lot more personal and more keenly thought out than other debates in the series. 

This new arc introduces Heaven Land figures R and D (haha) who reveal they have split opinions on the 12-year old Roue, as the last human could reshape or destroy their community. Leading both of them to make her future a game: R deploys her Elephant Unit to kill Roue while D mobilises his Donkey Squad to escort her as an honoured guest.  

Regretfully the weakest volume of Heart Gear so far but still containing promise.  Both with a new suite of characters and with the author finally being able to articulate his bigger ideals as more than set dressing for action scenes.  Still featuring the author’s stylistic flourishes that make the journey interesting to look at; Heart Gear is hovering around the point where it will lose me but still has not convinced me to do so. 

Roue, the last human and her combat android Chrome continue their search for Heaven Land.  Their current goal is earning earn safe passage to paradise through victory in the combat arena Valhalla.  The pair have been split up as Valhalla’s ruler Wodan recognises their potential, Roue tucked away in the stronghold and Chrome smashing up foes in the Colosseum.  Soon or later they will have to contend with Hildr, a war general and Wodan’s main obstacle.  She might be the duo’s greatest ally… provided she and Chrome avoiding killing each other as part of Wodan’s scheme.

There are many way to capture an audience’s attention.  Takaki chooses to do this through explosive action and artistic flourishes.  From the heart-shaped shimmer in Roue’s eyes to the application of dotted screen tone for highlighting shadows and hair; this is the volume where I started to really appreciate the smaller details within this style.  An arena duel between rivals who both need to win but wish they could be teaming up to fight the real villain is the most straightforward plot an action series can have. While Chrome’s tin-man blandness remains an issue its Hildr’s stoicism that ends up being effective.  Outside their duel, Volume 3 is Takaki developing the divide between Hildr and Wodan as potential commanders of Valhalla.  With humanity gone these machines built solely for military leadership have to decide what that means.  More importantly they have to define what it means to live in a post-human wasteland.  Should they remain enslaved to meaningless goals in a changing world?  Should they strive to evolve and individualise beyond their core impulses even if could spell disaster later? The dialectic argument has more bite to it than most the ethical musings in the series as it is an actual argument fuelling the narrative.  Rather than someone bombarding the 12-year old Roue with questions nobody can answer.  

This is also where the science fiction aspects of the series get cast by the wayside.  As it goes along Heart Gear feels more and more like fantasy story that just so happens to have robots in it.  Science-Fantasy is a respectable genre,  but it does fell that Takaki needed to introduce cyberspace landscapes that impact the physical world to find interesting ways of framing conversations in his limited desert world.  Especially significant when his main creative obstacle is that his current villain doesn’t have a human face to emote with.  Things are getting more interesting but exhaustion is starting to set in with this series.