Title: For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams Vol. 7
Author: Kei Sanbe
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 210
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Publication Date: December 7, 2021
The Story
Volume seven of For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams sees Senri back on the trail of trying to track down and locate Kazuto and The Fire Man (aka The Rat). After learning of The Fire Man’s true identity, he visits a few people to share his information. One of the people he visits is Wakazono who has a theory of his own which pushes Senri over the line. After calming down, there is another matter that he needs to look into… who the Copycat Murderer is who is trying to frame Kazuto.
After some digging, we are treated to a lengthy backstory involving Kazuto and the events that transpired after the murder of his father and being taken by The Fire Man. We see how Kazuto became his apprentice and once he turned thirteen, was told to live on his own. One of the people he met that ended up helping him was a woman named Riko. Riko took care of him and, over the years, developed a relationship with Kazuto who, at this point, was still a minor.
One day, Kazuto was called out on a job that took months to complete. In the process, Riko left without a trace. They were reunited one day; however, the results of their meeting explain a lot about why Kazuto had become such a cold-hearted murderer. Those results also explain how Senri is able to connect with Kazuto through his dreams and visions, despite Kazuto losing the ability to feel pain. And, dare I say, those results also give a whole new meaning to the title of this manga series!
Characters
Kazuto got the biggest development here with the entire backstory of what happened after he was taken by The Fire Man. Kazuto lost more than just his sense of pain… he also couldn’t taste anything either. However, because of this, he humored Riko by saying all of her cooking was delicious even though he couldn’t tell. This shows a nice and caring side to Kazuto which proved that he hadn’t lost his sweetness. It made you wonder just how he became the person he was today.
The rest of his backstory does go into that but despite everything, Kazuto still cares for Senri, and that brotherly love is the only thing probably keeping him grounded in reality. Still, there were some blatant things said in the manga which indicate that all of this is leading to something with Kazuto. He definitely has his own plans in motion.
The Fire Man, aka The Rat, we learned is like a modern-day Robin Hood. He steals money and gives most of it to the poor. That was quite the odd development which makes me wonder what his entire purpose is? Even though they are both the same person, each label or “persona” seems to have something else in mind with these jobs that they send Kazuto out on. While we know a lot about The Fire Man at this point, there are still a lot of things we don’t know… such as his origins and what his overall goals are.
Enan seemed a bit distant towards the back half of the book. She searched Senri’s room thinking that she would find a photo of him and Kazuto together as kids as a way of bringing her comfort. She also eluded to thanking Katou with “thank you” in quotation marks. With the way she is positioned and her tone, let leads me to suspect that she didn’t exactly pay with words or money. That’s just my assumption but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did something that she may regret later on. Or… I could just be reading too much into it.
Final Thoughts
Another big info dump volume but this one was really interesting. The ending didn’t really surprise me as there was a certain single panel that foreshadowed it pretty blatantly. Still, it put a nice spin on the title of this series and explains a couple of things that deal with the connection between Senri and Kazuto.
I’m hoping that we’ll get some more information on The Fire Man soon. I feel we are at a point where we have gleaned enough information to understand the gist of things but we still don’t understand the “why” behind them. That’s the biggest and most crucial part of information we are missing and even if we learn it at this point in the series, there is plenty of other stuff to fill in the gaps such as finding The Fire Man, confronting him, finding the Copycat Killer, reuniting with Kazuto, and what to do about the other thing that was discovered. Plus, Senri has some debts he needs to repay, too, so those would make for some nice side content.
Maybe we’ll see it in volume eight… or maybe not. One thing is for certain… this volume made you care a lot more for Kazuto!
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