Code:Breaker Volume 2 cover image is courtesy of barnesandnoble.com.

Rating “OT” for “Ages 16+”

Sakura Sakurakôji is riding home on a bus one night, when she witnesses a strange and shocking sight as the bus passes a city park.  Several men are on fire, their bodies engulfed by a blue flame, while a mysterious boy stands nearby.  The next day at school, that same boy arrives as the new transfer student, Rei Ogami.  Although he comes across as normal, Rei is really a Cøde:Breaker, a terrifying kind of vigilante that cannot be touched by the law.

In Cøde:Breaker, Vol. 2, Sakura continues to struggle in her attempted rehabilitation of Rei, who continues, with robotic precision, to burn society’s vilest and most violent criminals.  Sakura discovers that there is a shadowy organization behind Rei’s activities and that there are other “Cøde:Breakers.”  Now, one of them, a callow, murderous youth named Toki, joins Rei for a mission to take down a corrupt politician, who is also a part-time monster.

THE LOWDOWN:  The characters, Sakura and Rei, are the main attractions of Cøde:Breaker, but if creator Akimine Kamijyo’s mishandles either one of the characters or their relationship, Cøde:Breaker as a narrative will dry up.  In this volume, Sakura spends too much time being repetitive and shrill.  Sometimes, she is a bystander in a story in which she ostensibly is the lead.  At other times, when the character acts more than she speaks, the story maintains its edge, if not actually becoming a bit edgier.

In some ways, the series is like the New Mutants, if some of the young mutants were stoic, psychopathic murders.  Cøde:Breaker does manage to examine and play with the idea of powerful children directed by authority figures to murder in the name of the common good.  This is indicative of a series with good ideas that is worth reading.

POSSIBLE AUDIENCE:  Young readers looking for edgy shonen will find it in Cøde:Breaker.

B+