Arm Of Kannon

“That’s just gross.”

Today’s review is another fun Tokyopop title aptly named “Arm of Kannon.” The following sums of my complete experience of this manga so far: “…Awww!! Oh God! Why!? Ah, man that’s not right!! Is that…did they just…holy crap!! That’s just…ahhh…that’s SO wrong…SO…SO wrong. Wonder what’s on the next page—AHHH DAMNIT!! No!! Why!?” Yes my fellow comic reading brethren, Arm of Kannon is one sick puppy. When handed this vaguely Battle Royalesque series, my cruel masters at Manga.com gave me not a hint of warning, nor any measure of sympathy for the depravity in my future. Any sane person would seek a new job. Fortunately they employed me.

It’s like a car accident. You can’t look away for the life of you. From the moment you open the pages of Arm of Kannon till the moment you put it down to find out when and where you can pick up the next volume, the damn thing has got you. It got me anyway. Unfortunately that’s not entirely a good thing. Now if the story were as epic as all the gore and sex then I might have found myself the perfect manga that I would go back to over and over again. Unfortunately the series is like dry humping a cardboard box. It gets you going just enough so that you want to keep at it for a payoff that never comes. The real drawing power of this series lies completely in its shock and gross out factor. The near overuse of sexual themes even rises above the gore in use and one has to question the state of Masakazu Yamaguchi’s sex life when he wrote this because the man is obviously a little cranked in the perverted arts. That being said I’m totally buying the next volume.
Again, this isn’t a series to go to if you want a good story. Most of the dialogue reads like a high school biology book where the characters go prattling on about DNA and evolution or blah, blah…look, it all becomes moot when you turn the page and you’re forced to look at some guy jerking off jailbait in his sleep because he wants to study his semen. That’s right. You read that correctly. Now go wash your eyes out you filthy beast. I mean I suppose there is a story about some ancient artifact, and infection and a secret organization and all that, but seriously by the time you’ve actually invested some of your life into this manga you’ll answer with a resounding “Who gives a crap? Show me the next gore covered body seeing as how that’s the only reason I bought this garbage” or something along those lines depending on how clever you are. The art itself isn’t anything that special and at times the characters can look absolutely goofy in the stylized way they’re drawn. So Yamaguchi’s not just a pervert, he’s a pervert with no sense of perspective. Perspectiveless pervert if you will.

All in all Arm of Kannon, depending on what your definition of the word horrible is, isn’t horrible. If you’re into the sick and twisted stuff ( Like a certain manga reviewer ) then this stuff might actually suit your demented little fancy. However if you are under the age of…oh let’s say thirty five, then you may want to consider staying away from this manga as it is pretty much assured to make you question your ethics and belief in mankind. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to pickup my next volume.