Dien Bien Phu

Synopsis

The manga is wrote by Daisuke Nishijima. The manga begins in 1973, during the American military's hasty evacuation of the South. Two people die in an explosion, leaving only their intertwined hands. The story then flashes back to 1965, when Hikaru first arrives in Vietnam. He is briefed by Sergeant Watermelon on the nature of the conflict: that it is impossible to understand and that neither side is right. The sergeant also stresses that the debauchery of Saigon combined with the heartless brutality of combat erases soldiers' sense of morality. This is underlined later when Hikaru and Compton find the sergeant and a group of his men torturing Vietnamese prisoners, and the sergeant shoots Compton to keep him quiet. He is about to kill Hikaru as well when the entire group is mercilessly cut down by Princess; by a stroke of luck Hikaru's camera, hanging over his chest, softens his wound. He daydreams romantically about Princess during his convalescence. After he recovers, Hikaru is given a new camera by his editor. It is promptly stolen by Bao and ends up on the black market for ten times its original price. Hikaru soon re-encounters Bao and tackles him, but after hearing about his dire circumstances, he lets him go. But Bao is soon tasked with detonating a suicide bomb in the US barracks. Despite another intervention by Hikaru, it explodes, although his and Bao's lives are saved by Princess, who mysteriously leaps in to carry them to safety.