Code Breaker - Manga Firstlook

Sakura is a beautiful highschool girl who receives plenty of confessions from guys who want to protect her fragile beauty. The truth is that she's a martial arts master with a strong sense of justice and terrible street savvy. One day while visiting a stray dog she sees a young man surrounded by blue flames. Those flames are burning up men around him, but he seems unharmed. She returns to the scene later and finds police writing up the scene as a small fire with no trace of any bodies. She wonders who the mysterious boy was only to have him transfer into her class the next day. His name is Rei and he seems like a nice, average guy. However, Sakura follows him and finds that he is a Code Breaker, someone who kills evil people without remorse. She seems determined to stop him, but he doesn't care much for her morals. He openly admits that he is evil for killing, but that won't stop him from hunting other evil doers. However, he soon discovers that his flames have no effect on her. Now Sakura follows Rei on his "part-time job" as he disposes of evil.

The first few pages of Code Breaker really caught my attention because Sakura seemed like a great character. The bishoujo with great martial arts skills investigating a crime scene seemed like a great setup. And then it all went downhill. With the introduction of Rei, all of Sakura's potential dissappeared. Rei's devouring fire gobbles up easily forgettable bad guys with little problem, and Sakura's endless pleas for him to stop killing people are repetetive and frustrating. While she may be instilled with a strong sense of justice, she's completely naive. Standing between Rei and some drug dealer/pimp/crooked cop/murderer isn't going to save the drug dealer/pimp/crooked cop/murderer. More often than not, Sakura winds up a hostage and Rei has a slightly more difficult time completing his mission. Additionally, Sakura's amazing strength and combat abilities are rarely utilized, which is disappointing since I was really looking forward to seeing her kick some tail. All of that wasted potential means Rei has no one interesting to play off of until the eighth chapter when another Code Breaker shows up. But even his sinister rivalry with Rei isn't enough for me to really get drawn in. The story moves slowly with each case introducing some new evil person who dies by the end of the chapter (but not before holding Sakura hostage). There are a few hints of something deeper, but I might get bored and leave before anything good actually happens.

Although the plot feels empty, the art in Code Breaker is very nice. Lines are clean and crisp with the panels rarely deviating from boxes in a row. Backgrounds tend to be sparse, but they instill the scene well enough. Evil and events meant to instill a sense of disgust are drawn in slightly more detail to draw the reader into the emotion of the scene. Character designs are very pleasant, but not outstanding. Overall, very easy on the eyes and a nice read. However, the promising setup seems to be floundering around a bit right now. Hopefully the plot will pick up the pace and our characters will be able to go somewhere.

You can read it online here.

--Ou-bento