Sui Makihara’s father makes robots and has brought his two most advanced creations, Vermillion and Kira, home to learn about humanity from his daughter. Inspired by Makihara’s achievements, but far less scrupulous, his former colleague Sakaki has created AT-6, a robot who lacks the programming that makes it taboo for him to kill humans, to eliminate those people who get in his way.
In volume five, Kira is hired as a bodyguard for a journalist who is investigating a series of killings that he recognizes as AT-6’s handiwork. He ends up confronting Sakaki and nearly killing kim—the penalty for which would be disassembly—but is prevented from doing so by the timely arrival of Vermillion. Other chapters involve the (boring) kidnapping of a visiting foreigner’s daughter, a new scientist at Makihara’s company who thinks Kira is his dream girl, and an unrelated bonus story that’s a tweak on “Cinderella.”
A.I. Revolution is an episodic series, not unlike InuYasha in that most of the nefarious doings can be traced back to the same culprit. Some recurring characters have been introduced and their histories revealed, which is all well and good, but the story seems to be drifting farther and farther away from its original focus. When the series started, Sui was clearly the protagonist. Now she’s been overshadowed by the robots to such an extent that we know more about AT-6 than we know about her. No longer does she impart any lessons about humanity to the two robots; instead, they mostly appear in solo adventures foiling terrorists and kidnappers. It’s pretty disappointing, really.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.
Oh, didn’t realise you had reviewed Vol. 5 as well (as I followed the vol 4 link from another blog).
Yep, somewhat going downhill. Ok reading to me so far but hope still, I hope it picks up in future volumes.