Annihilate Evil “Akumetsu”: A manga review

Hey there people I’m back again with yet another engaging manga review. This time it’s my all time favorite manga which I read around 5 years ago Akumetsu by TABATA Yoshiaki. It’s a very popular manga, most of you must have read it already and must have liked it but I’m still putting up what I liked or disliked about the manga. So, here we go, off to the manga review:

Including Sundome, Akumetsu was one of the first manga’s which I read. So, I’ll just tell you how I came to it first of all. So, I had just finished reading Sundome and some other mangas so I decided to go on the hunt for some more good mangas. I read around the internet for some good manga rankings, came upon this manga on mangaupdates.com, read the description and thought it would be an interesting read. So, that’s basically how it happened. Now, about that question which is popping up in your mind “Why write about this manga which I liked so much in my fourth blog post and not in my first one?” I gave my first post to Sundome because it was my first manga and the best one I read till now. Well, enough with the dilly-dally, let’s get to the review.

What does Akumetsu portray?

This is how mangaupdates and mangatraders describe the manga as: “Nagasawa Shiina is just an average 3rd year high school student until her parents’ company goes bankrupt. In order to pay the bills, she sells herself into prostitution. At her first job, a mysterious masked man crashes the party… and it’s someone she knows. Akumetsu is the story of Shou, a vigilante that’s out trying to straighten the corrupt Japanese Government through terrorism with his “One man, One kill” code of action.” Well, this description is a bit too short to sum up a manga which has captivated many people not only in the native country but overseas as well, don’t you think? So, here’s a description made by me: “Akumetsu’s plot begins with a teenager by the name of Shou Hazama, an ordinary, yet somehow comical and sleazy, high-school student, and his best friend Shiina Nagasawa. However his best friends Shiina’s family is in a poor financial situation. So she has to attend to these “partys” with rich members of societys to get money. This rich members of society are high-profile employees of the Ministry of Finance. However a man bursts into a room calling himself Akumetsu and kills a man and drags his body outside and then blows himself up. Thus, the act introduces a long, exceptionally violent campaign of murders performed by such masked individuals, targeting those who are deemed as responsible for the massive economical crisis and, as such, labeled as evil by the masked men, who all goes by the common alias Akumetsu (literally destroyer of evil).” The creators, publisher and hosting websites such as mangaupdates.com, etc. all term this manga as a shounen manga but in my opinion its a seinen manga because of the issues the manga tackles.

What I liked about it

This manga has a very, very good plotline. It deals with real life issues that can be said, is currently affecting us right now! In short: Japan‘s economy is in great danger and it has a 10 trillion debt or somthing like that. The people in charge of fixing this problem are instead living the good life buying lots of expensive stuff like cars and women. Yes the country is filled with corrupt politicians, they make lots of money when they are in power, and when the problem they have made becomes too much to control, they just leave it and retire with millions to enjoy! These people are evil, however nobody can stop them because they are the highest members of society. No one person can and that is Akumetsu! he does what we all want done to corrupt politicians, and that is for them to die a horrible death.

About the Characters

Now this is something different from the usual reviews I do. I don’t usually go all out and explain something about the characters but this time I will because manga deserves it. So basically there are only two characters in the whole manga which matter:

Shou: Shou I guess you can say was the “first” or the “original”. He appears to be just your normal average high school student, however he is actually “Akumetsu”. However what is Akumetsu, well I guess you can call it a terrorist organisation that seeks to kill corrupt politicians. Except all the members of this organisation are all clones of shou! We’re not talking simply one or two clones, were talking a damn army, and they all go out to kill corrupt politicians one by one. And that is why we have Shou he is the main protaganist and the Akumetsu who is most in the spotlight. Since he spends most of his school life without anything abnormal happening even if the police think he is akumetsu, and looks a whole lot like him, they cannot do anything.
Akumetsu: As you already know, Akumetsu, is just a mask of a super hero you can say. And the identity our a countless number of clone from “Shou”. However this is not just cloning of a body, but their personality, and their memories as well. You see the masks they wear once put on, can never be taken off, its spiked into your brain. When you die your last memories are transmitted to a satellite, which is then redirected to the cloning plant of the Akumetsu. And when you die the mask explodes leaving behind no DNA evidence for the police. So lets say you have 100 clones who each study a different university course, and then have them also undergo a single martial arts each. All the memories and experiences are reborn into a new clone, and he has all previous 100 clones intellect and abilities, that is how a super hero is born.

The Art

Man, I am really rocking this art style, it is really nitty gritty I like to call it. There is a lot of good detail whenever you want to see it. They also draw gore shots really well, were talking when limbs get sliced off and when you body gets shot to pieces all the blood, bone and flesh flying everywhere is very accurate. All the action scenes are extremely well drawn, you can see all the small and fast movements of the characters. This gives the manga a very quick motion status when the action really heats up. Plus the artist really knows how to draw ugly people, because all the ugly people are the villians and villians need to be vile and disgusted.

The Final Verdict

I do not know about you, but I found a lot of the economics and finances talk very difficult to keep up. You should have a fair amount of knowledge in these areas to understand just what the hell they’re talking about. A good thing to note about this manga is that it’s not just “you scammed millions out of their money, die!” the character Akumetsu actually gives in depth explanations on how their actions have affected Japan’s economy as a whole, then he kills them. Which is pretty much what you are most expecting to see. Though even if it might seem difficult to understand, the Akumetsu mascot gives very good explanations, so they know what their talking about. If you want to read a manga where someone finally gets to kill all the corrupt politicians that are ruining the country, then this will be a damn great read. So, go ahead download your volumes or grab your copies and get reading.

The latest read: Battle Royale

All right people I’m back with yet another interesting manga review. This time it’s “Battle Royale” by Koushun Takami and Masayuki Taguchi, my latest read. I know all of you must be wondering why jump from the first manga to the latest manga read? Well, no specific reason, I just went through this manga just a few days ago and I thought it deserved a review asap. So here it is:

There’s only one thing to say about this manga “GRUESOME” yes, you read it right it was gruesome, full of blood, guts, gore, unnecessary killing, rape and every form of explicit content available but in my opinion it’s what you call a “masterpiece” as well. While reading this manga my stomach boiled and I felt digusted many times but all of that helped me to get into reading the manga even more. The twists, turns and variety of story were some added bonuses which helped me stay engaged till the ending.

Battle Royale: An introduction

One thing I should make clear before providing you with any kind of review is that this book is not for kids, or for the weak hearted. It’s a strictly seinen manga from all aspects. The brief that TokyoPop gives for the manga is: “In the future, random Jr. High School classes are chosen to compete in a game called Battle Royale. The rules: only one student can survive after 3 days on an island or else they all perish. Weapons are handed out and each student is sent out into the field alone and unprepared for the horror that awaits them. The classmates turn upon themselves in a battle for survival, treaties are made and broken, and former friends become foes as the relentless countdown continues. Amid the betrayals and rising body count, two classmates confess their love for each other and swear to survive this deadly game together.” which kind of sums up what the whole series is about. It’s about ruthless and unnecessary killing which a rational in normal conditions can’t approve.

Battle Royale was originally a Japanese novel written in 1999 by Koushun Takami. It was rejected in the final round of the literary competition for which it was intended, owing to its controversial content. However It went on to become a bestseller when finally released in 1999, and a year later, was made into a manga and a feature film. When the novel was adapted to a manga it ran from November 2000 to January 2006. In December 16, 2000 it was then finnally released as a feature length movie by Kindi Kuasaku.

A wider definition

Battle Royale is set in an alternative time line where Japan is a police state or dictatorship by the government. The actual country is called Republic of Greater East Asia and after the turn of the millennium, the government have increasing concerns that the tight grip on the younger generation of people is slipping. And so the government issues a “program” to scare the younger generation into obedience called “Battle Royale” a competition where students kill each other off, and one such event is happening to one particular school. Shiroiwa Junior High School is such as an example where they have been lured into thinking they are on a “school trip”.

The students are having fun on the bus until the bus gets gassed up and the students go unconscious. The students wake up groggy in an old worn classroom and standing by the blackboard is a teacher named Yonemi Kamon. He explains that all the students are now a part of “The Program” called Battle Royale on a deserted island, he also points out the collars on everyone’s necks. With the students attention firmly focused on the him he explains. Battle Royale consists of a number of students with all but one mission, to be the last person standing. They kill of each other with numerous weapons they find available. If a student tries to escape the collars explode, if they try to take them off the collars explode. Every moment your of death, rape, or torture is recorded via video. All your parents or guardians have been properly “silenced”. You have no chance of freedom, no hope for survival, you will have to kill all your closest friends. There is no hope. This is Battle Royale.

The ROYALE art of “Battle Royale”

Battle Royale boasts some of the highest quality art style imaginable. I haven’t seen another manga where the artist draws so many different expressions in a person’s face. Some people say the greatest expression a person’s face makes is when they’re about to die, and that fact is portrayed magnificently in every death scene. The eyes roll to the back of the head, the tongue starts poking out of your mouth all the while you are in convulsions. Each character in the manga is killed via any one of the following: beheading, gutting of the abdomen, shot to pieces, everything is so realistically drawn. All the veins are drawn with blood spurting out, all the severed muscles and nerve endings are convulging. The sharpeness of the bones protruding.

As I said it is extremely graphic be warned because they leave nothing out. Heck the only time they censor any of the artwork is through the sex scenes. If you’re a faint of heart person who cares a lot about others I definitely recommend that you avoid this manga. The detail of art in this manga is so realistic that it might make you very upset in the death scenes, making you turn away, desperately trying to turn the page.

Overall Conclusion

Now after all that you can tell that this manga is not for the faint of heart but if you’re a person who can keep his sanity even after going through all of that stuff written above graphically then I would certainly like to recommend this manga to you because its one of the most well portrayed manga I’ve ever read. Now why should you read battle royale? Simply because it’s one of the greatest mangas ever that shows the will to survive. The characters desperately are trying to survive and you cannot even imagine what their going through. It’s a non stop roller coaster, if your a survival horror fan then this manga is perfect for you!