Manga Review: Shamo

Title: Shamo
Author: Hashimoto Izou, Tanaka Akio
Release: Weekly
Status: Ongoing
Genre: Seinen, Martial Arts, Psychological
Art: A
Originality: A
Story: S
Characters: S
Humor: B
Action: S+

Impression: Absolutely incredible. As far as I read, this has been an incredible manga in spite of the mature content that shows up from time to time. This is about Narushima Ryo, a perfect model student who went berserk on his parents and murdered them and gets sent to prison for two years and had his face exposed to the public for his crimes. While in prison, Ryo is taught Karate by a man known as a devil and it changes him completely since the only way to survive in prison was to fight back. After being released from prison, Ryo becomes involved in the underground world and seeks out opponents to become stronger. This leads him to taking part in a publicized fighting tournament where he wants to face the man who is said strongest practitioner of Karate and he’ll go however far it takes to fight him. The fights in this manga are simply amazing. You know how bad it was when the last 3 minutes of Goku vs. Frieza in Dragonball Z? The authors gave us a fight that lasted 3 whole volumes and every single part of it was completely intense and filled to capacity with spirit. It’s very hard to put this down once it gets good and every volume will feel far too short despite them having the same number of pages as any other manga.