The Law of Ueki, Vol. 14, Volume 14: Ambush!

Ai Mori has finally figured out what her power is and its only taken her till the third match of the third round of the King tournament. A LITTLE late if you ask me! I'm not going to spoil it for you, but trust me, her power is just as goofy and apparently useless as every character's in this series is. Even if Ai is able to defeat her opponent, Team Ueki still has to deal with Infernal Hanon, the strange being that has possessed Robert and is intent on making Ueki's path to the final round as difficult as possible. He sabotages their rematch with Team Capucho and is also in league with Ueki's next opponents, the extremely powerful and mysterious Team Barrow. As usual, this series is quite the guilty pleasure for me, seeing as it hits upon almost every tournament manga cliche you've ever encountered. The trick is that Fukuchi makes the journey to the end battle over 16 volumes very funny. His writing is firmly tongue-in-cheek and you sense that he's not taking any of this very seriously. The themes that have come to the surface in my reading are that you have to fight for justice even when you get punched, socked, knocked into the air, kicked across a room, and maybe even burned to a crisp by various superpowered enemies. Ueki is like a priest of right and his sermon to his team and to readers is that you can never give up...on yourself or the people around you. Of course, we have the whole "train until you get more powerful" motif running through the work as well. But the comedy is good and the moral values worth fighting for. Two more volumes to go. I'll be a bit sad when it's all over.