There’s nothing like a comic book cover to pull you in. Issue four of Rai has him full-frontal ready to tackle on whatever anyone has to throw at him. Unfortunately, the exact opposite is happening inside. Immediately he and his older brother Raijin are met with hostiles, in a fertile community, where their mission of eradicating any way for their father to regain its full strength isn’t met with the urgency Rai has been carrying with him since this journey began. You see luscious, green land with produce sufficient enough to feed this thriving populace. The only problem is that it’s running on scraps from the fall of New Japan and one particular piece has alerted Father and his minions who are given a scorch earth directive.
What drives this tale as in all previous issues is the dichotomy between the technology that are both a part of Rai and what’s after him and the organic life on earth that continues to attempt to assert itself after being trampled on from New Japan falling from the sky. In Rai trying to gain a semblance of humanity, like the land he travels is a continued battle within for dominance. Rai says that he wants to be human, but an old ally shows him how that he’s failing miserably. Most importantly we see it in how Rai treats his big brother. He uses him as a GPS rather than a sibling. And continues to ignore the fact that in order to not allow Father a gateway all avenues must be eliminated, this includes Raijin.
Like Data in ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Raijin has a better understanding of what it means to be human. Perhaps it’s because he’s continually questioning. At one point Raijin is asked what he feels. What’s going to happen if Rai succeeds? You see the small sentient android viscerally taken aback. The arrested look on his face breaks your heart since his own brother has never broached that question. In being a person Rai fails because he believes that the organic parts of himself automatically gives him an in as to how to be human. Yet he lacks empathy with whoever and whatever he encounters. The people of Hope Springs who he meets in the fourth issue of ‘Rai’ aren’t impressed with his noble quest. They see him as being mostly responsible for their plight. Their survival now depends on something Rai is hell-bent on destroying and the enemy is closing in.
What makes ‘Rai’ a compelling narrative is that it takes a Don Quixote storyline and applies it to a hardened warrior who only knows how to face a problem one way. The complexity of Rai’s struggle to become a real boy is layered every time he’s met with something he can’t solve with a weapon. Essentially, you get the sense that this story isn’t about Rai. The focus is on the small sentient android who Father wants. It seems to be the only reason why he’s bothering to go after Rai. Everyone sees Raijin as a person, perhaps even someone with a level of understanding that he can overcome whatever hidden program that might be within him. Everyone except Rai. You need this issue, it forces Rai to begin to confront the questions that many readers have had since he decided not to kill Raijin. But finding a use for something or someone isn’t the same as finding humanity within yourself. It maybe too late for Rai to understand that.
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