Story:
The story in akame ga kill is rather straight-forward, the empire, which for some reason goes unnamed is plagued with corruption because of the prime minister who controls the empire through the emperor - who is a child, for some reason… but you don’t really need a summary MAL already has one, I’m just here to point out some things that bothered me that would, at least for me, deduct quite a few points. The plot can best be summarized as this: there are bad people, night raid kill them so a revolution can eventually happen. the general plot of akame ga kill isn’t really the main focus, since, speaking as someone who read the first 51 chapters of the manga and then continued to read it monthly, i can’t really remember much about the plot other than night raid having to kill someone because their shit. one thing i notice frequently in manga, this one including, is something i call ‘short burst effect’ - it's when you start reading a new manga that already has quite a few chapters out, and you get psyched, you feel something, i don’t if its dopamine or whatever, the point is the series seems great, you can’t wait to read the next chapter and you can because its already out and you give it an 8 or a 9, however, once you finish reading and are left with weekly/monthly releases you have more time to calm down, read something else, think harder about what you read, and that’s when the flaws you didn’t notice because you were so psyched - rise up, and whether or not you still want to read it after that short burst period, when you have to wait weekly/monthly is what ultimately to me decides whether any running manga is really good. Unfortunately, after reading 51 chapters and having to wait a month for the next chapter i found something lacking, and after a few months i notice a lot more flaws with this series now than before, most of which are in the characters.
The characters:
As i said, akame ga kill's main plot isn’t exactly revolutionary, so that means it should have really good character, right? Well, not exactly, the characters are by no means bad, they’re quite varied personality wise, and there were a few that i quite liked, however a while before I started this review i looked back at the characters and realized something odd, there didn’t seem to be a single characters who couldn't be summarized in two sentences, maybe three at best. and that’s the third biggest problem i have with the characters, they’re not nearly as fleshed out as they appear to be, with most characters getting a couple of pages in a chapter about their past, which doesn’t necessarily have to be a deal breaker, but when your show is pretty much nothing but murders, you got to try harder than that to make them sympathetic or likeable. the second problem i have with some of the characters, and not only the main ones, is a lack of motivation, yes there are characters with genuine motivation behind their actions, but it seems to me that the series relies too often on the 'crazy' card - why does a character do this? Because their crazy, or just cause, why does this character like to murder or torture - because that’s how they were born and that would be fine if it was only one or two but quite a few seem to have no motivation to be an asshole other than they were born an asshole(you got to wonder what incestuous gene pool all these characters are coming from).
I get that one of the main themes is corruption, but corruption isn’t some bizarre disease or plague, its people, and without proper reasoning behind it it just doesn’t seem to make much sense. and lastly, my biggest problem with the characters, and the show as a whole is main character death, yes if you didn’t know yet akame ga kill is known for killing main characters, and i don’t have a problem with that, on the contrary, if done properly it can lead to some real heartfelt moments, and some might argue that there are, but for me this problem corresponds with the first two problems, the characters aren’t nearly as developed as they seem to be, and as a result i just didn’t really care whenever someone died, because they died before they got any proper development and the other characters seemed to shrug it off in 2 chapters, sure it was still there, but there was no change in the characters overall, and they only seemed to remember they care whenever the plot brings it up, I’m not saying they have to be emo or something, but they should at least be a bit more serious or something, the characters all together seem to behave the same all throughout the series, and their behavior initially feels incongruous with the setting, its odd to me that this people can joke around and be generally normal people among themselves, but then suddenly cut people in half without flinching or caring.
The art:
It’s pretty good i guess.......
Oh fine, akame ga kill's art IS pretty good and i generally like it, but, and this is probably the least important point here, the art to me doesn’t match the tone the series tries to set, it tries to be dark and gory at times but the art is just so polished and precise that it just falls flat.
In conclusion:
Despite its flaws i find myself in a position of being on akame ga kill's side because it might not be the best, or even as good as other hail to be its a step in the right direction, because i get the sense that it’s at least trying to be more about the characters and dark themes like what is justice? and killing for the sake of justice, now if only it could implement them well that'd be great, but if you’re looking for a fun series to read all at once and not think about too much you can certainly do much worse than akame ga kill.
