Akame ga kill vol 1 by Takahiro

Illustrated by Testuya Tashiro
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Tatsumi is a country kid who, along with two others, have trained up and left their village to go into the Capital and make enough money to save their starving village. Things don’t go so well for Tatsumi. Within a day of reaching the capital, all his money is stolen and his life is put in danger. He’s taken in by a Good Samaritan, but an attack from the deadly Night Raiders destroys even more of what he thought was good about the capital. He is “kidnapped” by the Raiders and shown the true nature of how deep the corruption flows throughout the country. Tatsumi joins with the Raiders to hopefully set things right, and, ultimately, to save the entire country, and his village, from ruin.

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While this title does have some pretty violent moments, it balances out with some sort of cute, funny moments as well. Tatsumi starts training with two of the Night Raiders in this volume, and it seems that he will apprentice with everyone before he is considered a fully fledged member. Some of these training sequences are comical and a little cutesy. The overall premise and world building in this first volume is done very well. The pacing was also on point as there was never a dull moment, despite some moments of exposition, in this volume.

Yen Press rates this for older teens. The back cover has all the letters (LSVN), but there weren't any sexual situations in this volume. The nudity in volume one is from naked, dead bodies that are mostly covered in blood, so there isn't a lot of details shown. However, some of the later volumes in this series are wrapped in plastic in booksellers (meaning they either come with freebies or they have scenes they don't want passing children to see), so I'd probably wait to read a few more volumes before making plans to purchase.

Sara's Rating: 9/10
Suitability Level: Grades 10-12

Publisher: Yen Press
Publication Date: January 20, 2015
ISBN: 9780316259460 (Paperback)

​Tags: Rating: 9/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, Action Adventure, Yen Press