if you like a hero, killing, blood, tragedy, revenge, corruption, and the killing of corruption, with a twist of comedy and a few tears shed you will love this manga. Read all 18 vol. in i day.

The world is a messed up place. There is corruption, injustice, and inhumanity everywhere. Even in modern Japan, there's enormous societal problems. But what is the solution to these complex problems? Akumetsu, similar to an out of touch conspiracy theorist, proposes a simple and incredibly stupid solution, kill them all. Akumetsu revels in this stupidity, encouraging it with an infallible hero protagonist that unsubtly espouses the author's ideals. The author has never heard of the phrase, "show, don't tell." In a medium in which pictures are suppose to be the primary way of conveying information, the author instead chooses to have paragraphs of mind-numbing monologues. None of those bloated paragraphs help develop the characters. Also like a conspiracy theorist, the author refuses to write people who disagree with him as anything other than corrupt cowards, ignorant sheeple, or purely evil.

This is the exact same pattern that the author repeats again with his subsequent work, Wolf Guy. Its the same Gary Stu protagonist that is simply a mouthpiece for the author's pathetic rants. But where as Wolf Guy is universally recognized as rape-indulgent man-child garbage, Akumetsu is conversely praised for its depth. It's time to call a spade what it is. Akumetsu is that elderly relative who fancies himself an intellectual, who considers the world full of idiots, who can't stop complaining about society's problems and how obvious the solution is. They believe the only reason it hasn't been done yet is because the system is keeping him down. Those people are pathetic and just because Akumetsu has that message packaged together with some pretty pictures doesn't make it any less pathetic.

... Last updated on December 30th, 2012, 5:50am

This manga is fun and full of violence!!!. There is a pretty neat little plot, some subplots for the lesser characters and an 2 over-arcing stories among the main one(shou's friend and the actual creation of the akumetsu).
+Great Art
+Nice story
+++++Violence is always a plus+++++++
-A few repetitive kills
-Could have had a better ending but it was still ok by most standards.
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Now people have said(here) parts of the manga are unrealistic, the philosophy is ridiculous, etc. Its not. Its basically one guy taking justice into his own hands and being as shocking and violent as he can be.(which is pretty entertaining with this style of art). People try to analyze this series with implications to reality. Listen, we can sit here all day and discuss how this may or may not be the correct thing to do, but the ENTIRE point of the manga is that Akumetsu doesn't care. He's there to kill the corrupt(all of them) and be done. That was noticeable part of the manga, that people's ethics got in the way and that Akumetsu would bypass that with his own "justice".(this was pretty much the entire point of the policeman's plot).
-Please, don't pass this awesome manga up because someone misunderstood it, that would be a shame.

I am absolutely lost on why this is rated so highly.

This is one of those manga that makes me wish that anime fans weren't so quick to look down their nose at western comics, especially cape comics. I've heard this described as "Japan's Batman - done RIGHT!" But that's wrong. This is basically what happens if you have someone who doesn't actually read superhero comics ask, "Well, why don't they just kill all the bad guys?" try to apply that line of thinking to politics. This story thinks it's much smarter than it actually is.

The characters are laughably one-dimensional. Their either guys who would slice their bellies open before even thinking about screwing over the poor, innocent public, or they're over the top, disgusting looking villains (maybe they'll get one event at the last second to show why they're such bastards, but only if they're about to die).

Part of the problem is that characters like Akumetsu have already been deconstructed multiple times. You can't have people like him unless you're okay with living in a police state. The first story arc has him delivering something along the lines of "If there are more evil people, I'll just kill them. If there's more after that, I'll kill them too, until Japan is peaceful." Two problems. a) Sorry, who died and made him king? Who is he to decide who lives and dies, who is "good" and who is "evil"? I've never met a person who falls completely into one category. Luckily for us slower readers who don't need things like subtly or realism, 90% of the "characters" (I use that term loosely) fall into those boxes. There's a reason a jury box is filled with more than one person- One person should not be able to decide whether you're worth it. b) It's called a slippery slope. I'm not even sure half the time how Akumetsu directly correlates the actions of the politicians to the ruins Japan is allegedly in (newsflash: While a country being in a huge amount of debt is NOT a good thing, it does not mean you're in ruins). Thus comes the problem: How does he decide who gets to live or die? Okay, we'll say the first politician deserved it because he was an ass, embezzled, was one dimensional, and indirectly caused untold suicides. I don't agree with him being killed for that, but whatever. We know what the criteria for being murdered is now, indirectly killing others. Next arc: Bikers are being extremely obnoxious and scary, cops are doing diddly about it because they won't get promotions or something. And apparently this is also worthy of being murdered. Sorry, what?

This is where I had to start slogging my way through the rest. Akumetsu's philosophy is stupid. It's childish and stupid, and he's entirely to proud about his childish and stupid thinking. This is not something that will lead to a peaceful Japan. This is something that leads to innocents being murdered. Let me put it this way: It's okay to kill this politician, his selfish actions led to 30 people committing suicide-->It's okay to murder this policeman, he wasn't doing his job properly, which led to 30 people being pissed off every night-->It's okay to murder this biker, he should have been willing to die over breaking speeding and noise pollution laws-->It's okay to murder this 15 year old who clearly has problems at home because he's obviously going to be a nuisance when he grows up anyway, better stop it before it starts-->It's okay to murder this student, he continues to be late for class, thus annoying all 30 of his fellow students and his poor teacher
Where do you stop? At what point do you say it's okay to kill someone over this, but not okay to kill someone over this? Is terrorizing people into doing what you want (and that's what Akumetsu wants, not for you to follow the law, or even to do what you think is right, but to do what HE thinks is right) really how you want to live? Do you want a gun in your face every time you do something wrong? The author clearly agrees with the protag, and it's obnoxious to think someone thinks this is in any way not retarded.

I'm not saying that some people aren't straight up horrible. Hell, I'm even a bit familiar with Japan's political system, and I can assure you, it's far from perfect. Possibly even worse than the US. But that doesn't excuse the caricatures passed off as human beings in this. That doesn't excuse the low level writing, the immature way of thinking, the really terrifying when you think about it implications...There is nothing I would recommend about this. The art isn't that great either. The idea is nice, but the execution is awful and as others have said, self-righteous, even though the author clearly has no clue. I recommend you read Garth Ennis' run on The Punisher if you want to read about a somewhat realistic view of a guy who murders bad people that's entertaining, violent, and reasonably intelligent, even if you think you hate comics.

I got three volumes in before I couldn't take it anymore. And while that might not be enough for other readers, how many of you would read three books into a regular book series, hate it, then say, "gosh, I should read ten more volumes to be sure that it sucks." I recommend this only to people who don't read anything else but manga, and don't like to think past the exterior of a book.

i love the violence, the art, and the gore, but if i want to read about politic i will read a newspaper. at first all the actions compensate for those self-justifying soliloquy and speeches, but seriously this manga get boring as hell the farther you read on because it is just too tiring. and i really mean boring as hell, because like in hell there will be blood, torture, pain and death but it get boring when it is done over and over again. and i never like terrorist/freedom fighter justifying their action. you like killing people, why not?
seriously i don't know why people like this. but hey, if you skip those lengthy text you may be able to enjoy this more.

it sounds to me that YOU are the one that is too self righteous not to mention ignorant. let me give you something to think about. If Hitler was shot in the head the very first time he proposed a heinous crime do you think all those ppl would have died? instead europe tried to 'talk'. a lot of freakin good that did.

Like it says in the title.
I read this one a while ago and may miss or confuse some points but i want to say my piece.
There's just too much blood and unnecessary talk. It's a piece of propaganda with a vigilante willing to kill for the people in Japan. The hero everybody craves for. And i think that overall it's quite shallow.
That is not to say that it doesn't bring some interesting aspects from the japanese society and government and how the top dogs want to stay in power forever. The way they abuse power to satisfy their wills and needs is grotesque to say the least.
But at the same time it instills the wrong message for such a long time that it was difficult for me to feel extremely attached.
Killing the bad guys will solve problems? What a childish train of thought. It completely disregards other people that might get affected by those chains of violence and revenge.
Just a few days ago i read a much more realistic piece called Sanctuary. It doesn't try to preach as much as this one, it actually tries to show one better way of solving problems, not without fault but still better.
Yeah this may be interesting, the art may be cool, it may have some nice information and scenes, but overall it's just not worthy of a 10.

this manga is definately superb.. the main protagonist(s) is one hella of a guy.. in this serious setting world wher he kills all the corrupt pple one be one in a horrifyin way he still laugh n crack jokes n has a easy goin character...
Well this manga has lots of goverment n political info which can mak it bit boring but still overall its interesting..

Our hero is quite diff.. He is not that much into hiding his identity infect he is quite reckless which makes him more profound n clever ...

Using cloning in a very clever way n he is ready to take full responsibility over his action...
Go pick this one up n see the reckless story of cleanin the corrupts

i began reading akumetsu after i had finished death note and i can say this for sure that except for the fact that the main character kills people nothing is similar and people who shun this manga by comparing it with death note can go f*** themselves. it is even better than death note at some places.

akumetsu is a completely different manga with new plot and methods. this series had me seriously interested in it and kept me wondering what would happen next. yeah, the idea of cloning may be old but the way it is used is completely new. eventhough this is a serious manga it has its own fair share of jokes and comical situations.

no one seems to notice it but the author knows some serious s**t about the government policies and the various related establishments.

what i really liked in this series was the flashback revealing everything about the origins of "perfect one" and what he did.

i give this series a a perfect score and recommend it to anyone who is hates corruption and wrong things done by the government.

... Last updated on February 19th, 2012, 6:00am

This is indeed a great manga, I can't even understand why there are some people comparing it to Death Note, when the reasons of the protagonist(s) are quite different.
Maybe you don't understand a lot of Politics, but you will empathise with the citizens, when they realize what they are watching is wrong but at the same time they feel... good? great? after the whole kill is done.
I don't really have much to say about the awesomess of Shou, but please read the series if you have the time :3