Old Boy Book 3 (NSFW)

NSFW:  Image of sexy, sexy funtime!

"You understand?  This game is purely between you and me" - Dojima

Time for the third volume in the Old Boy series.  Old Boy was a Japanese manga that ran from 1996-98, written by Garon Tsuchiya, drawn by Nobuaki Minegishi and translated into English by Kumar Sivasubramanian.  It inspired the much more famous 2003 South Korean film of the same name, although the film and the manga diverge quite considerably as the story moves along.  The eight volumes tell one, intense, on-going storyline rather than being split into arcs like western comics tend to be.  Previously on Old Boy:  Ten years ago a twenty-five year old man called Shinichi Goto was kidnapped and held for a decade in a private, Yakuza run prison, his "sentence" paid for by a rich man going by the alias "Dojima" who seems to have a bottomless well of hate for Goto.  After his release, Goto meets and sleeps with a young woman called Eri who spots and helps him remove a GPS tracking chip in his shoulder.  Goto manages to track down the location of the prison via the restaurant who delivers meals to the floor it's on and he questions a guard stationed there at gun-point.  The guard doesn't know who paid for Goto to be locked up, only that a Chief in their organsation called "Saijo" might have closed the deal.  Goto then surprises the thuggish man following him and demands to speak to Dojima over the phone, who agrees to continue their little "game".  Goto then locates an old friend from his pre-prison life called Tsukamoto, who owns a bar he lets Goto stay in. Goto also meets up with his now married lover from back then, neither she nor Tsukamoto can get the truth of where he has been out of him, and cannot answer his question of who might have hated him back then either. The last volume ended with Goto finding another GPS chip in his shoe as Dojima continues to monitor him.  And now the continuation.

Shinjuku Golden Gai sleeps.

[Note:  This manga is "unflipped" so must be read from right to left, and the sound effects have been left in the original Japanese and subtitled instead]

Day dawns in the Shinjuku Golden Gai where the Moon Dog bar is located.  A homeless man shuffles into the bar where Goto is sleeping and hands him a mobile phone, he takes the tracking chip in return and leaves.  Goto follows him and sees the homeless man being paid by Dojima's thug.  Goto comes over to the thug's car and the thug instructs him to press one on the speed-dial to get directly in touch with Dojima.  The phone is illegal and can't be traced and with that he drives off.

A new phone

Tsukamoto is betting at the races.  He takes a break and phones Mitsuko, Goto's old lover.  She says she couldn't get anything out of Goto other than the suspicion he was caught up in"something complicated and mysterious."  Tsukamoto asks to meet her for tea and she agrees.  Later on they discuss Goto some more, Tsukamoto asks if she had anyone else on the side when she was dating him.  She says no she was "head-over-heals in love" with Goto back then.  Tsukamoto says he had to asks because he needs to know if anyone truly hated Goto back then.

The action then returns to Goto, still regarding the mobile with suspicion.  He wonders if he should take the intiative and phone Dojima.  Instead he phones Tsukamoto on the bar's phone, Tsukamoto tells him the bar isn't open sundays so Goto can have a drink in peace.  Finally Goto calls Dojima who is relaxing in his expensive and spacious home.

Dojima at rest.

Dojima comments that the mobile "makes them friends" and laughs.  Goto asks if he'll ever show his face or will he just keep playing childish games.  Dojima calls foul, if Goto really has had enough he can just toss the phone and get out of their "game."  Dojima then says he plans to meet Goto one day and tonight he'll let him see his face.

He instructs Goto to be on a certain bridge at a certain time.  Goto travels close to their by taxi and walks the rest of the way deep in thought.  When he reaches the bridge, Eri is there.  She says she got a phonecall telling her she could meet Goto on the bridge so she took time off work to come.  She hugs him while Goto glowers and looks impotently out over the water for a look at his nemesis.

Reunited.

Eri says she doesn't know what happened to him after he found Shiseiryu.  He goes back to her place and fills her in.  He asks what kind of voice the person who called her had.  Eri says it was a "nice" voice, female, most likely a company secretary.

Goto: "Y-you got all that from her voice?"

Eri: "If a girl can't figure out that much she'll never make it in today's world."

Goto tells her he's been watched ever since he was released.  Eri realise Goto is worried about her.  She says she doubts his enemies will abduct and torture her.  Goto mutters that is how the Yakuza used to work.

Eri: "I think your enemies are deeper, sicker people."

Eri then asks Goto what he thinks his life would be like if he hadn't been imprisoned.  Goto says he'd be a "happy slave".  He'd go about his business whether he was happy or sad. He'd be married with kids, and would unwind at the races or playing golf.

Goto: "I'm not the type to pull my hair out looking for a meaningful life."

Eri then asks iof his thoughts since being released are just of revenge.  Goto says he felt something more.  A "freedom I never thought I'd feel again".  Did he feel that freedom because the life he would have had was gone?  Then he says that being consumed with revenge would be just what his captor wanted.  So "I swore... I'd get my revenge my way.  Playing it loose and easy".

Bad time for a call.

Eri hugs him saying again that he mustn't worry about her.  They make love, but Goto's mobile phone rings while they are doing it and when he answers it, he gets no reply.  The mood somewhat shattered, a naked Goto frowns at the phone in his hand again.

Now dressed, Eri takes the phone and tries to find out its number but it's blocked.  Goto says it's probably because the phone is illegal.  Eri makes to press the button to call Dojima and Goto panics, snatching the phone off her.  He then apologises.  Eri calls her flat's phone from it and it works.  She then walks with him as she makes her way to her work.  He finally reveals his full name to her: "I remembered my name from ten years back.  Shinichi Goto."

They share a taxi and when she gets out, she tells him to call her.  Back at the Moon Dog bar, thoughts whirl round Goto's head.  "He's setting the pace" he thinks in frustration.  He remembers back to his incarceration, how he spotted the truth behind all the TV shows.  Somehow this led him into the mindset of the people who locked him up.

Goto: "After ten years.  I get the sense that the mentality if the criminals who did this shocking thing to me and the mentality of my 'tv enemy' are strikingly similar."

He goes for a walk and silently tosses the mobile into the road where a lorry crushes it.  He goes for a nap in the park, still thinking he's under surveillance.  He then goes to a boxing gym which he thinks has "yakuza written all over it."  He goes in and asks to spar.  He says he wants to fight the Japanese welter-weight champion who goes there.  The coach agrees and Goto goes and kills some time before the match.

Goto tests himself out.

He remembers how when he was locked up he watched boxing on TV and shadow boxed against the fighters.  He thinks Japanese boxing has lost it edge and that "the odds are in my favour". He returns to the gymn and gets into the ring with the champion.  They set about each other and Goto wins easily, knocking the champion out.  His plan is to get some information about the yakuza boss "Saijo" who had him locked up, and he hopes his performance will get him an in with the organisation.

As expected, after his win the coach first offers him a paid place in his gym.  When Goto refuses, the man hands him a card saying he can go there and meet the "boss" at least, which is exactly what Goto wanted.

Goto returns to the Moon Dog bar, with Dojima's thug shadowing him.  He reports that he has "no idea what he's up to."  Inside, Tsukamoto asks Goto if he has any leads on the man who hates him.  Goto doesn't answer.  Next day he whiles away the time playing mahjong and walking around Tokyo.  He decides to give it a week before going to the yakuza joint he's been given the address of.

Goto on the hunt.

Back at the Moon Dog, Tsukamoto says a "nice looking woman came here looking for you".  Goto thinks it's Eri and then panics because he didn't give her the address of this place.  He phones her flat and leaves a message asking if she was threatened into coming there.  Later Eri picks the message up and is confused as she has no idea what he is talking about and he didn't leave a number to call him back on.

Tsukamoto leaves Goto in charge of the bar saying he doesn't get many customers and if he does, he should give them their bottles (people seem to reserve bottles in his bar) and snacks and they'll pay next time.  Goto sits and drinks alone, until an attractive woman he doesn't recognise comes into the bar.  She knows his name and orders a scotch, then says "Shall I take you to meet Saijo?"

Another woman for Goto.

She then tells him to join her in a drink or she'll leave.  He pours himself a scotch and gulps it down.  She tells him he'll be meeting Saijo under certain conditions.  When he tries to stand, he collapses.  He's been drugged, she never drank her drink so the bottle was spiked.  She tapes his eyes shut then helps him to his feet.  Leaning against her he is able to walk to the car where Dojima's thug is waiting to take them to Saijo.

They arrive at a scrapyard and she leads him to another car with Saijo in it.  Turns out he wasn't in jail, he was in Hawaii setting up drug and prostitution rackets.  All it took was one phonecall from Dojima to bring him back to answer Goto's questions.  He says "There are people in life scarier than the yakuza."

Saijo

Goto asks the name of the man who had him locked up.  Saijo says he was called Dojima and he got the impression he'd got rich during the economic bubble.  He couldn't tell what age he was, he can't think of anything helpful.  He then leaves saying "No way I'm getting any deeper into this fucked up mess."

The woman returns as the muscle relaxant Goto was given wears off.  They get in a car and drive back to the Moon Dog.  In the car, Dojima calls Goto and says he offered up Saijo because he didn't want Goto getting any deeper into the world of the yakuza and get distracted from the game between the two of them.  The floor 7.5 organisation will have no more to do with anything as he has blackmailed them into leaving Goto alone.  Also the name Dojima is an alias so the yakuza angle is a total dead end.

Back at the Moon Dog, the woman disposes of the rest of the drugged whiskey.  Goto wonders why, out of all the brands they stock, he chose that one.  The woman says he was agitated and "susceptible to suggestion".  All she had to do was mutter the name of the whiskey and he would choose it. 

One way to interrogate someone I guess.

They talk some more, she admits she was offered three hundred thousand yen for a "thrilling job" drugging and taking him to Saijo. She then tells him she's been implanted with a post-hypnotic suggestion herself.

Woman: "So that if we have sex and you make me come I can give you a very important hint in this game".

So slightly reluctantly, Goto bends her over the bar and starts literally pumping her for information.  She does indeed orgasm and says "The past... remember your teen years".  And that brings book three to a conclusion.

This book does a good job of tying up the plot thread of the yakuza angle by making it yet another demonstration of Dojima's power and influence.  Despite Goto's best efforts he's being outmanuvered at every turn, each time he opens an independent line of enquiry, Dojima shuts him down, he believes the game is between just him and Goto and after this volume Goto pretty much capitulates to Dojima's powerplays and follows the clues he's given rather than investigate idependently.  We also have Dojima offering up another woman for Goto to have sex with, and the revelation of hypnotic suggestions being used will have reverberations much later in the series as well.  Join me in a few days time for book four and the long awaited first meeting between Goto and Dojima.