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Currently reading the full Ichi the Killer story as of writing this. I read this before moving on to the full story. I am a big fan of older classical styles of manga illustrating, and this book has that fun comical style to the art. I enjoyed the character designs and storytelling. I have seen some say this contradicts the full story, but I don't think it does, to be honest. This is a fun introduction to Ichi, but the real story also touches on his past life, much more brutally if I say. I would recommend any one read this before reading the full ... story.

It's incredible to see what old-timey edgy media was like back on the day.

TLDR; not recommended if you're not interested in a little edgy prototype of the sequel. It's just depraved with no reason to be at all.

Alongside Devilman Lady, Ichi joins the stories I've experienced from what the past considered extreme emotions of depravity. Ichi is a good kid, abused for a long time by the big bad bully who almost kills people in the daily. High school has always been seen as this hierarchy of power, violence, only to be broken by something strange, the other. Ichi is the other.

While the school ... is going through a hierarchical change, a new kid on the block who can beat the hell out of people. The big bad bully and Ichi join in to destroy it, while Ichi's mental issues lead him to only fight while in the middle of a panic attack. The old versions of Berserk modes, as if fear, and sadness unlock the true excitement of battle. It's all so weird.

It contains weird sex, sexual abuse, sexual gratification from violence. Not with any rhyme or reason. This is where the edgy elements peek through. Ichi gets boners from decapitating people after unlocking his potential in the school stuff. There's no logical reason as to why we turn to this kind of story, and of course, that's what leads to the sequel, Ichi the Killer, which is the popular, and from what I've heard, the better story.

This is no good. The art is hard to follow sometimes. Character fighting is just a bunch of bullshit movies which almost make sense. The way bodies contort makes it hard to understand what is going on. The expressions are exaggerated in a jarring way.

Ichi is a story littered with sex, gore, extremism, disgusting imagery, but I can see the bones to a good manga. Good that it was just a little prototype for the writer to work with, and get experience as he should've. It was a good look back into the history of one of the seinen greats.

4/10. Disgustingly bad, but a debut with good bones nonetheless.

If you read Ichi the Killer, you maybe were looking for a little more hyper violent action featuring your favourite sadistic crybaby manchild. The thing is, Ichi the Killer was written five years after this prequel story, and you can tell that time was spent drmatically improving the authors storytelling. The art is among the worst ive seen published. in some of the drawings a characters chin will take up 90% of their face, other times characters will become 11 feet tall and be half their height the next panel. The memorable characters of Ichi the Killer are totally absent, with Ichi being half as ... interesting & Dai being as generic as any character ever written. The overall plot is much less grandose than the sequel, being a basic "High school punks fighting other high school punks" saga.

TLDR: IF you like Ichi the Killer, this might be interesting. For everyone else in the world, there is so much better out there.