ZetaZaku's Blog

Riki Oh is a bizarre manga about a guy looking for answers about his past, his brother and his mother. It all starts out simple. At first some things may seem simple, like Riki Oh going to the jail. As the story progresses, you find out that he had more reasons for going to that jail. After the first arc, rest of the manga focuses on Riki Oh looking for his brother, and later looking for the secret behind his mother's death. Once again, everything seems simple at first, but later we explore more about Oh Birei's (his mother) past. We even find out who his grandfather is, which is probably one of the best twists about this manga. The last arc was probably one of the more bizarre ones, especially the very last part of it, right before the end. People who read it will know what I'm talking about. That spread is probably one of the best I've seen in manga. It's so ridiculous and genius.

The only character who gets explored is Riki Oh. We find out more about his and his mother's past. There aren't any notable recurring characters except for his master perhaps, but he also rarely appears. Thus there aren't that many characters that could get explored. Most of the villains are interesting, from the well known Warden (villain in the OVA and Live Action adaptation) all the way to Aneyama and his big secret.

Best thing about the manga are definitely the twists, over the top violence and the bizarre adventures of Riki Oh. We get to see androids, Jack Nicholson, and even Nazi remnants. Just finding out more about Riki Oh makes the manga interesting. You always find something new about his heritage, about his parents, about Nachi etc. It gets really bizarre in the second half of the Cape arc. Third arc is a bit tame, with mostly introducing freaks as villains. Fourth and fifth arc start getting over the top again.

I really think that Riki Oh is a manga everyone needs to experience at least once in their lives. It's not serious, and you're not supposed to take it serious. There are parts where a villain chokes Riki Oh with his intestines, Riki Oh washes glass shards out of his eyes and ties the tendons in his cut arm. Maybe it does seem like another violence manga, and the violence really is over the top, but Riki Oh has other things to it, such as the mentioned twists and the whole story. It's really a manga you read for the story, and not for the violence. The violence just comes as sugar on top.

Also going to compare this to Hokuto no Ken. Riki Oh can be easily compared with Kenshiro. They both kill with one strike by destroying enemies from the inside, and both are gentle, care about others and want to punish bad guys. It's not that similar plotwise, but it's still set in a post apocalyptic world, except less Mad Max-like.