Ranked #543

Ichi The Killer (Manga)

Wow, this manga will leave a lasting impression on you for a few days after reading it. The art in this book is incredibly detailed (Gekiga style), there are no cutting corners when drawing the characters or even the background scenery. The characters all have their own distinct personalities and they develop more and more as the story progresses. The art also gets better every volume.

This book is enjoyable, if you know what your going to be dealing with. I recommend watching the movie first just to see what your going to be reading. The amount of violence, sexual taboos, and overall insanity displayed by the characters in this book is not for the casual reader. Some scenes in this book either made me say "What the hell?" or made me squirm in my seat...

This book regardless of its content, is an incredible manga. Great pacing, art, story and characters that make you want to read the next volume just to see what situation they get themselves into next. read more

Ichi the Killer is a Seinen, Psychological, Thriller about a twisted yakuza warfare involving psychological mind games. The story itself is about excommunicated gangsters seeking revenge however this isn’t made clear until later on in the manga.

For the most part the story follows a fearsome killer known by his codename (Ichi) and the orders he undertakes from his so-called uncle. The main story may lack some depth but it tries to add some by revealing the past bullying experiences of Ichi, which led to his current state of mind. Although it doesn’t seem to do a good job at relating it to the present, it manages to tie it in with Ichi’s current target. In the end the story does have a repetitive cycle but there are plenty of exciting twists to spice things up.

The artwork is unusually great because there’s lot of detail put every panel and character designs, however most of the character designs are quite unsettling. Also this manga is pretty creative in its depiction of extreme gore and horrific violence, so expect to see the most nauseating thing you can imagine.

Overall Ichi the Killer proved to be one of the most disturbing and gruesome manga ever created, with a twisted story that didn’t make much sense until you get deep into the story. This manga really only served the purpose as a vaccination for extremely, bloody, violent manga because after reading this you’ll never feel a thing when you see like a guy being tortured or decapitated in any other manga. So in the end, this manga is a decent read, but you’ll have to be a violence lover to enjoy this.

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