Kingdom of Z (Volume 4) - Zombie Masters of Martial Arts!

Their target, the zombified Takeshi Garou is in the ring waiting for his fight to begin. This might give them a chance to catch him, although there are lots of risks involved. Notably for Satou who has to be Takeshi’s opponent!

Kingdom of Z (Volume 4) – Zombie Masters of Martial Arts!

What happened?

They had already captured a couple of zombified martial artists and found Ritsuka who may have the power to control zombies, however, the main reason they came was standing in the ring waiting for his fight. Takeshi Garou was bitten, became a zombie, and has been waiting for more than a month for his fight to begin. Miki believes that the fighter personality is in control, however, it’s impossible to say when the zombie side will take over. That means they need to act now. And, would you believe it, Miki has a plan. It’s a crazy plan, but it ironically makes sense.

Satou strips to his underwear and will enter the ring as Takeshi’s opponent. Karin is putting on the ring girl bikini and will enter the ring when the bell goes. Of course, Miki will already be in the ring dressed as the referee. Satou just needs to last three minutes without dying from one of Satou’s punches… Everything starts out exactly as Miki planned it, however, Takeshi appears to go to bite her while she separates the fighters. Karin acts quickly, ringing the bell early. Takeshi turns and heads back to his corner. That’s the moment they were waiting for. Karin and Miki attack, however, they are no match for Takeshi who sends them both flying and then turns his attention to Satou.

Before Takeshi can bite Satou, Ritsuka runs into the ring and tells him to stop. He listens. They quickly grab him and run out to their truck. They completed the mission, but it almost cost them. Satou’s shoulder was badly injured but it should heal in time. However, not long after returning to the school, they learn that the RWC is heading to the school to capture Miki and Karin. Of course, Miki planned the entire thing and is keen to see what their A-ranked zombies can do against a group of trained fighters. It was surprisingly embarrassing… for the RWC. With that nasty group out of the way, the next stage of the plan can go ahead. They need to secure the roads.

Kingdom of Z Volume 4 Masaru Satou and Miki Sekigahara in costume

Kingdom of Z Volume 4 Karin Nagiri in costume

What did you think?

Most of this volume was the fight with Takeshi and it was surprisingly good. I know George Romero played around with the idea that zombies might retain some of their personality or trained movements so it’s not a crazy stretch to have a fighter who became a zombie acting on instinct with those skills, especially when you consider how much they’ve probably trained to get to that point. The muscle memory alone would kick in. Then, when you add in the resilience of a zombie with the removal of self-preservation limiters, you’ve got one nasty fighter. I liked how they basically couldn’t control him until Ritsuka jumped to save Satou, something that I think Miki was counting on from the start.

Then, we had the introduction of the RWC who were shown to be the absolute worst of humanity. In just a few panels, it was clear that these guys were bad. Maybe, they hammed it up a little too much, but it worked. Seeing them obliterated by a handful of A-ranked zombies was quite fitting. I also have to laugh at how much Satou keeps putting his foot in his mouth. Of course, he’s just a device so that Miki can fully explain everything to us, the audience. I think that explains why he’s such a wet noodle. He’s just there to enable a conversation between the girls and the reader. Other than that, he’s basically useless and putting his arm in a sling adds to that.