Akumetsu is a manga series was written by Yoshiaki Tabata, and illustrated by Yuki Yugo. The manga is serialized under Weekly Shonen Champion. Genre includes Action, Tragedy, Psychological, with a bit of cruel comedy.

Akumetsu’s plot begins with a teenager by the name of Shou Hazama, an ordinary, yet comical and sleazy, high school student and his best friend Shiina Nagasawa.

The story takes place in a near-future Japan, where excessive corruption has lead the country to a massive economic downfall, increasing the public deficit to an enormous seven hundred trillion Yen. Politicians and businessmen simply enrich themselves amid growing unrest. Shiina’s family, due to crushing debts, sell their daughter into prostitution, forcing her to attend parties for the elite.

During one such party, attended by highly positioned employees of the Ministry of Finance, what was going to become an orgy is suddenly interrupted by a man wearing a demonic mask, who after giving a speech on how savage and corrupted the upper class of Japan has become, proceeds to brutally slaughter one of the economic advisors by crushing his skull with an axe. Recognized by Shiina as Shou, the man simply waves the statement off as a misunderstanding, then grabs the body of his victim and walks calmly to the front lobby, where he is gunned down by police and, before dying, has his head blown off by a device implanted into his own mask.

Then begins the violent campaign of murders performed by similar masked individuals, targeting those who are deemed responsible for the massive economic crisis and, as such, labeled as evil by the masked men, who all goes by the common alias Akumetsu (destroyer of evil).

Akumetsu runs at a total of 18 volumes.

The manga is very well done story and illustration wise. I really appreciate the story where Akumetsu begins to kill off all corrupt highly placed political officials, who place themselves above the law, thus being untouchables. Yet Akumetsu take it upon themselves to “clean” Japan of these corrupt officials, yet people deem them as terrorist, aka the bad guys. The manga is gory and at times may be hard to follow. I highly recommend this manga to those who like serious mangas also with a touch of fantasy.

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