AniManga: Akame Ga Kill

Now that the album is done, I have a little extra time to go snowboarding and catch-up on my manga. My latest love is AniManga: Akame ga Kill!  which literally means "Red-Eye Kill!"

I can describe the manga in three words "Off The Hook." The story focuses on Tatsumi, a villager who travels to the Capital city to raise money for his village only to discover the Empire was covered in corruption. The assassin group Night Raid recruits Tatsumi to help them in their fight against the Empire to end its corruption.

Night Raid, is a group of assassins comprised of the swords woman Akame, scissor wielder named Sheele, the string manipulator Lubbock, armored warrior Bulat, the sniper Mine, beast fighter Leone and their leader Najenda. They work together with the Revolutionary Army to take down the evil prime minister and free the citizens of the empire. Pay attention to the original line-up of names, because this series kills off main characters faster than the show "Game of Thrones".

All the members of Night Raid and most of the powerful fighters in the series use "Imperial Arms" also known as a Teigu. Imperial Arms were created by fusing parts of supernatural Danger Beasts with alchemy over 900 years before the series begins. Forty-eight of these items were created. Half of the Teigu were lost to history and the rest have been collected by the empire and rebels to become more powerful.

Although Teigu are weapons, they can be human and animal based which makes some hard to identify. The easy to identify Imperial Arms are swords, firearms, scissors, cosmetic box and armor. The difficult ones are a shape-shifting dog that has a fetish for consuming human flesh. And Susano, a powerful warrior who is also a Teigu who has lived over 1000 years. Not everyone can use an Imperial Arm. When a person chooses to use a Teigu, they must be compatible or the user risks death.

Throughout the series Night Raid collects and loses members and Imperial Arms battling the Empires most powerful general Esdeath. She has her own team of Teigu wielding warriors named "Jaegers" who protect the Empire and more specifically protect the minister. Aside from being crazier than the mad hatter on an acid binge, Esdeath is powerful and has an attraction to Tatsumi that borders on the psychotic. During a few points in the series Esdeath kidnaps Tatsumi and Night Raid has to rescue him from her icy clutches.

The manga series and the anime diverge with the anime no longer following the canon material during the "Wild Hunt" story arc. The anime chose to skip that whole arc and add their own ending to the series. I personally don't like how they ended the series, because they made up the ending and it seems rushed when you compare it to the rest of the anime series. 


 

With that said, I recommend checking out both the anime and manga because the series is worth it. Above I posted the final fight between Akame and Esdeath. 

If I had to describe the series to a new viewer in one sentence...it would be. Akame Ga Kill, is a mix of hardcore action, high speed battles, tragedy, madness and a whole lot of dead people.