The story follows a young man named Tatsumi Karasawa who suddenly rises in the criminal world of Shinjuku, Tokyo, and becomes the leader of a group of amateurs who show no fear to face police and gangs alike. His successes in the Tokyo underground make a police chief and a yakuza boss plot a conspiracy to eliminate him.
Not to be confused with the 1995 film of the same name.
This manga features the following tropes:
- Animal Motifs: Karasawa gets an image of a crane tattooed on his back, stating it represents how the weak can win against the strong. Later in the story, the crane is edited to be holding a katana to symbolize his growing strength and influence.
- An Arm and a Leg:
- Tan is held hostage by the Canton organization and they send his severed right arm to Karasawa's group. They ask for 5 million yen in exchange for Tan's body, which Karasawa only brings in to trick and ambush them after declaring he won't just accept Tan's incomplete body.
- Raymond forces Ishikura to cut Karasawa's right arm off by holding his family hostage, but Ishikura refuses to disable Karasawa after everything they went through and instead unsuccessfully commits seppuku.
- Babies Ever After: The final page is of Karasawa holding his infant son with Satomi next to him.
- Batman Gambit: Karasawa starts a fight with the Canton Boss upon retrieving Tan and is surprised when Tan just stabs the man to death. The supposedly loyal Luo, however, just executes his own Boss' son Chuuan to take over the organization. The woman Chuuan was molesting the previous day was actually Luo's wife, and this outcome was something Karasawa did predict just from a glimpse of their predicament.
- Because You Were Nice to Me:
- Karasawa grows fond of Murasame because of how cool-headed and cordial he was being to him despite their enmity.
- Satomi teaches Cooley basic human decency and compassion after he had been raised as an emotionless murderer, turning him into a valuable ally against his father's organization.
- Benevolent Boss: Karasawa's organization amounts to a group of determined friends who aren't afraid of anything and Fujimaki treats his subordinates like family.
- Bullying a Dragon: Imaizumi has Karasawa arrested so that he could get dirt on his chief Kuriki, but Karasawa just locks the door and beats the shit out of him.
- Collateral Angst:
- Itami's wife Shinko takes four bullets meant for him during Han's betrayal of the Shinjuku gangs and dies, motivating him and Karasawa to investigate.
- Yuuko is raped and killed offscreen by members of Grass. Ishikura is shaken by her death and retires from the conflict for some time after giving all the intel she had acquired to Karasawa.
- Doorstop Baby: Fujimaki first met a young Katsuo abandoned inside a locker and, after ten hours passed, decided to go back and raise him after all.
- Driven to Suicide:
- Ogata is finally bound to a bed as his cancer worsens and is forced to pass on the position of Yamaou chairman and his wife Kano to Murasame, but he still attempts to have him assassinated. He confesses this to Kano while crudely grabbing her by the crotch, despairing that he could not have her for a long time. Kano disowns Ogata for this, so he can't take the humiliation and shoots himself in the head.
- Ishikura refuses to disable Karasawa when forced to by Raymond and instead tries killing himself in an attempt to let his kidnapped family be released.
- Cooley attempts to drown himself alongside his father, feeling that his own actions as a hitman are unforgivable even if he knew no better. Raymond saves him, but lets himself go down with the ship.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him:
- Shuji is suddenly ambushed and assassinated from having his car pushed off a cliff.
- Umizaki, who is Karasawa's archnemesis for most of the story, is anticlimatically killed by a member of Grass when Karasawa has him cornered to prevent him from leaking information.
- Imaizumi is killed offscreen between story arcs by a then unknown faction.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
- Ishikura is introduced as one of the more ruthless antagonists, but he is a family man and cares a lot for his son.
- Raymond Tao confesses that in spite of all the horrible things he did to attain power he never killed his own sister because she was the one who held his hand while they lived in poverty. He views this as a weakness, but it is enough to make Karasawa show some mercy for him. He also ultimately saves Cooley's life, even after treating him with nothing but disdain throughout his life.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Karasawa claims kidnapping Ishikura's son Kyousuke is something he can do over and over and he becomes an anonymous online friend of the boy to put pressure on him, but all this is done with no intent to bring harm to Kyousuke.
- Chon lets Karasawa, Kim and Tan witness a child pornography photoshoot of three schoolgirl delinquents he brought with him, saying some girls are willing to go all the way while being videotaped. Karasawa says nothing to him or the girls, but after Kim and Tan express discomfort at what they saw, he says such a thing happening so casually made him feel like crushing the whole country.
- Karasawa claims a stock of cocaine from a Columbian criminal but Fujimaki refuses to deal with drugs. And neither does Karasawa, actually. He instead gets rid of them and sells packages of udon flour to the Columbian's underworld contacts.
- Fat Bastard: Fujimaki starts out as a sleazy guy who dates jailbaits and who seems to treat his subordinates rather badly, but gradually mellows out after Karasawa convinves him to take a slice of Shinjuku for himself.
- A Father to His Men: Although he may seem harsh to his underlings, Fujimaki's strong point as a yakuza is how he treats them as if they are his own sons.
- Faux Action Girl: Very few women in the story who do any fighting, like the two Russian assassins who lasted a couple of pages before Karasawa killed them. Satomi did shoot Umizaki on the balls and never breaks under pressure as a Damsel in Distress, but when she tries to save Karasawa from the Grass organization Cooley promptly puts her to sleep and leaves her on a secluded place.
- Friendly Enemy: Karasawa is turned against the Yamaou after Shuji's assassination but even then he comes to respect Fujimaki, Murasame and Ishikura. His schemes often redirect them from trying to kill him into an outcome that benefits both sides.
- Gratuitous Rape: Several of the villains indulge in rape as a show of their scumbaggery. The good guys, too, take advantage of their status as gangsters to have their way with women like it's no big deal. Karasawa at one point even assaults a random woman next to Umizaki just to prove that he could make her instantly melt for him while Umizaki, who he knows to be a pedophile, had his dick shot off and couldn't even try.
- Karasawa needs to get intel on Umizaki from the villain's secretary, Yuuko, so he just barges into her office and rapes her while Kim and Tan forcefully kiss the receptionists outside. Afterwards she leaves with them like nothing happened, even remarking Ishikura had previously also used sex to get information out of her, and this leads to her getting raped and killed by Umizaki's goons later on.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Raymond Tao had undercover agents within the Yamaou and was responsible for the death of Satomi's parents.
- Groin Attack:
- As part of Karasawa's instant takeover of a host club in Shinjuku, he and Kim ambush the owner and get him bitten in the dick by a venomous snake and blackmail him to sign the transfer certificate.
- Karasawa's crew threatens to cut the testicles of one of Ishikura's subordinates and get away with a sizable amount of cash. Ishikura asks the guy if he really thought his balls were worth that much and has him executed for his failure.
- Satomi shot Umizaki twice in the groin as revenge for him driving her sister to suicide, causing him to lose one testicle and his entire penis.
- Hero on Hiatus: Karasawa lets himself be arrested after failing to protect some of his close friends and spends around 5 years in prison, after which he returns with a new hairstyle. Itami rules over Shinjuku in Karasawa's absence and turns hostile to him for a while.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tan dies from using his body to cover a grenade's explosion meant to kill Karasawa and Kim.
- Honor Before Reason:
- Itami makes a deal with Ishikura to get Fujimaki assassinated as compensation for how Karasawa's group has stolen 3 billion yen from him. However, Karasawa insists that if Itami is acting behind his back, then he must do the deed all on his own. Even though Itami fails, Karasawa sees he has fought for his pride and has no problem bailing him out.
- Karasawa's father Ryuusuke took a case to defend a man accused of killing a crowd of black kids in broad daylight, skillfully manipulating the court proceedings to convince people the defendant was a white scapegoat. All out of gratitude for his boss' providing for his studies and for his own honor as an attorney, but once he won the case he immediately executed the unrepentant criminal before comitting suicide. His final message to Karasawa is that men live with faith, but faith cannot exist without honor. Karasawa actually came to resent Ryuusuke, desiring to never let himself or anyone he likes die if he can do anything about it.
- Humiliation Conga: Karasawa ambushes Han and beats up the traitor, who is then hit and spat on by Itami and other people who are suffering from Shinko's death. His supposedly senile father then turns out to have faked his disabilities to test him and nearly executes him for such disgraceful behavior until Karasawa and Fujimaki ask him to just be honest and ask for Han to be spared.
- I Have Your Wife:
- Karasawa kidnaps Ishikura's son Kyousuke as a bargaining chip against him to prevent Itami from being killed, but his crew does nothing to harm the boy and even release him shortly before confirming Itami was fine.
- The Grass organization puts their members on a leash by holding their families under captivity to be executed at the slightest disobedience from them.
- Kick the Dog:
- In chapter 2, a puppy fawns over Karasawa's leg but he drops it on a pile of trash, monologing that one who fawns over others and is adopted will be chained for the rest of their life.
- Umizaki had driven Satomi's sister to suicide from raping her multiple times and sought to have Satomi killed after she shot his balls off in revenge. As such, he is one of the few guys in the story who Karasawa wants utterly destroyed.
- Hong kills one of his underlings for no reason, calls the guy's sister over and rapes her next to the corpse. He then declares he'll do the same to Karasawa and his girlfriend. After being brought back to his cell, Karasawa is just slumped on the wall and seething with rage for what happened.
- Raymond reveals he had Satomi's parents assassinated just because they were trying to teach kindness to Cooley. She tries to kill him over this, but Karasawa lets Cooley decide. Cooley takes Raymond out to sea on a boat and hears nothing but hateful remarks of how he's an unwanted child, so he attempts to sink the ship with both of them aboard to atone. Only then does Raymond knock Cooley out and puts a life vest on him as a last act of kindness.
- Manly Tears:
- After Shuji is assassinated in chapter 5, Karasawa starts shedding tears when the man's father comes to mourn him. When Itami points it out, though, Karasawa affirms he's not simply crying — he's angry.
- After the Fujimaki clan is excommunicated from the Yamaou, he cries over the 35 years he spent in Ogata's service with only Katsuo and Karawasa's group as witnesses.
- Murasame cried when Kano begged him to not fight Ogata and instead work under him, asking if he really had to act as a "reasonable adult". As a subversion, Murasame comes to find his old self's tears pathetic for how he had submitted to the power of the Yamaou and given up on claiming Kano for himself.
- Ishikura takes a Shower of Angst while mourning Yuuko's death.
- Papa Wolf: Yoshihiro's father tries to prevent his son from joining Karasawa's gang, after divorcing his abusive wife in an effort to recover Yoshihiro's respect. Karasawa repeatedly hits the man to drive him away but he never gives up, so the gangster helps him up with tears of admiration and vows that no harm will come to Yoshihiro.
- Put on a Bus: Kuriki is stabbed in the back on volume 11 and then, for a single panel later on, is seen recovering on a wheelchair. He then unceremoniously disappears for the rest of the series.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Karasawa encourages Murasame to fight for the position of Fifth Chairman of Kansai Yamaou by reminding him that it's no good just being smart and careful if he'd take 200 years to get where he wants.
- Rescue Romance:
- A platonic example; Karasawa saves Itami from a botched assassination attempt out of respect for how he tried to do it with his own hands. Itami, who really didn't like following Karasawa's every whim, gets very bashful on the return home and blushes like a schoolgirl when Karasawa says he did it simply because he likes him. He can't help but admit to his wife later that he became Karasawa's "woman" after all.
- Murasame fell in love with Kano after she found him stabbed and treated his injuries.
- Karasawa first became friends with Satomi after saving her from some would-be-rapists.
- Sacrificial Lion: As the stakes get higher past the halfway point of the series, Karasawa's sidekicks Tan and Kim get killed off. Then Murasame is also ambushed and shot to death.
- Schmuck Bait: Ishikura tells Hong that Karasawa had tried to convince him to betray Hong, but when the two arrive at Karasawa's cell to punish him, Ishikura just locks Hong inside and waits as he's beaten to a pulp.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Interestingly, every major villain is either killed by a third party or commits suicide or falls to a Mutual Kill against their supposed partner.
- Sigil Spam: The Yamaou/Sannou have the same name and triangular sigil used by the Kobe organizations seen in Buronson's other yakuza manga Sanctuary and Begin.
- Tempting Fate: Fujimaki brags about his dark and troubled past to Karasawa, stating he won't stumble before a tiny rock like him. He then freaks out when Karasawa pretends there's poison on his sake and almost falls prey to a group of hitmen disguised as cops.
- Title Drop: During the conflict with Raymond Tao, Karasawa's actions are compared to a feverish heat which turns people to his side and that the villains cannot comprehend."The world led by "heat" is far more terrifying than yours!"
- Tragic Villain: Raymond tells Karasawa that he was born into poverty and had to join Japan's Imperial Army and partake in their war crimes just to eat. What actually nets some sympathy from Karasawa, though, is that no matter how good Raymond feels about being evil he still had it in him to spare his sister's life and raise Cooley, even though he considered the boy a mistake and ended up turning him into a cold-blooded murderer just like himself.
- Willfully Weak: At first Karasawa and Hong seem evenly matched, but Hong handicaps the hero by shooting his foot and stabbing his arm and repeatedly beats him up. However, Karasawa never bends the knee to him and easily puts Hong in a chokehold when he gets the chance, revealing all of this was to show off and discredit both him and Raymond to their underlings.
- You Have Failed Me:
- Ishikura has one underling executed and disposed of for losing three billion yen to Karasawa.
- Umizaki has Yuuko raped and killed for leaking information to Karasawa and Ishikura.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Raymond kills Hong after he is crippled by Karasawa.
