Books: Old Boy Vol. #7

The seventh volume of Old Boy pushes us incredibly close to the secret of why the rich and powerful “Dojima” locked up the ordinary salaryman Goto for ten years. But you won’t get the answer just yet — the story’s been constructed to hold off revealing that particular piece of information for as long as possible. And, on top of everything else, it’s been put behind a door labeled “hypnotism,” but more on that later.

It all comes down to how patient you are, I guess. If you’re the type to squirm angrily while critical details are held over your head in a story — not just once but again and again, as part of the story structure — if you don’t savor the journey as opposed to the destination, Oldboy will drive you monumentally nuts. But if you like that sort of thing, if you are as fascinated with the steps towards the solution as the solution itself, this has proven itself to be a series worth following through to the end. It’s not where we get in life, but how we got there and what it all means.

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.