Search and Destroy, Volume 2: Thirst for power ruins lives

The second installment of Atsushi Kaneko's adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Dororo evokes emotions, including anger at inequality.

Search and Destroy, volume 2
By Atsushi Kaneko
Serialized at MSX: Mangasplaining Extra
Published by Fantagraphics, 2025
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Looking back at my review of the first volume of Search and Destroy, I realized that I sort of glossed over what this comic is actually about. It’s an adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s Dororo, which was a supernatural samurai story about Hyakkimaru, a fighter whose father had traded different parts of his body to 48 demons, and after he grew up, he went on a quest to defeat each of those demons and regain his stolen body parts. With Search and Destroy, Atsushi Kaneko has updated the story to a futuristic sci-fi setting, and instead of demons, the main character Hyaku’s father traded her body parts to 48 robots.

We got some of that backstory in the first volume, and volume 2 fleshes it out a bit more by spending some time with the father, who is now the mayor of the futuristic city where the story takes place. He’s a leader who claims to want peace between the “hyoo” (human) and “kreech” (robot) citizens of the city, and despite some complaints from other members of the city’s government, he has welcomed robot refugees from a recent civil war into the city, claiming that everyone should be able to live together in harmony. But his real motivation is to turn these robots into a labor force that can mine the rare earth minerals that the city depends on the maintain its position in the global economy.

That seems pretty familiar, even if it doesn’t line up exactly with real-world politics in the 21st century. For instance, the current president of the United States doesn’t even bother to try to appear beneficial toward the minorities that he and his fellow oligarchs depend upon to keep society running, but the desire to exploit those who are less fortunate remains a constant in modern society. As is the desire of certain people to do anything they possibly can to gain and cling to power while desperately hoping that nobody pays any attention to the crimes they committed along the way.

However, all of that is just a small aspect of the story in this volume, and as one would expect, given that this is an action manga, the focus is on Hyaku’s continuing quest to regain her stolen body parts. First, she infiltrates a sort of brothel where rich humans come to seek pleasure from robots who had previously served as “sexual relief kreeches” during the war. The brothel is run by a strikingly evil-looking robot madam who has steadily changed her form to appear more inhuman, but still retains a pair of human legs, which are the ultimate goal of Hyaku’s assault.

This portion of the story features some of the cool action that Kaneko can do so well, but it also provides some memorable moments, such as a patron of the brothel whose identity is something of a surprise and who gets pleasure not from sex, but from brutalizing robots. He ends up being forced into a situation where his beliefs about the right of humans to wield superiority over robots are called into question, and while he doesn’t really seem to learn anything from it, the audience at least gets a reminder of the ugly ways that people dehumanize those who they see as less deserving of recognition.

The ongoing plot also sees some interesting developments with Hyaku, who has been entirely focused on the rage she feels at the wrongs that have been done to her and her desire to get back what was stolen. But as she recovers her lost body parts, she’s starting to recognize that they have some limitations. After recovering her human eyes, she’s surprised to learn that she can no longer zoom in to see things farther away. And after we see some of the amazing acrobatics that she can perform with her blade-like robot feet, it’s not a surprise when she seems to lose a step (get it?) after she gets her human legs back. But at the same time, she doesn’t want to give up the robotic parts of her that get replaced, and she rebukes her thief sidekick Doro when the latter asks if she can have them.

Some developments later in the volume also highlight the unexpected consequences that Hyaku faces as she regains her humanity. While her robotic parts could be easily repaired when they were damaged during fights, the same isn’t true of her human parts. She’s starting to actually feel pain when she gets wounded, and she’s finding that the scars of her battles are going to keep affecting her. Because of this, she’s feeling fear for the first time, and she’s struggling to figure out how to process emotions other than pure rage. All of these developments fit in with the theme of the story, which emphasizes that neither humans nor robots are superior; Hyaku may eventually come to realize that combining the two aspects of herself will be the best way to succeed in her quest.

As interesting as the themes and character development are, the action is where this comic continues to shine. It’s as dynamic and exciting as ever, and the big showdown in the brothel stands out, since it takes place in a holodeck-like virtual reality room that is glitching, meaning that the fight is shifting between wildly different settings as the characters are engaging in all sorts of backflips and knife slashes as they inflict grievous wounds on each other. It’s pretty awesome, and I expect that the forthcoming final volume will build to an explosive climax that combines crazy action with heartfelt emotion. If it can also work in some commentary about the ever-present threat of powerful-yet-insecure leaders who are always ready to inflict harm on those who are less fortunate, I’ll definitely be satisfied.