No guns life manga

Thus vol. 1 of No Guns Life sets up the central “hero and kid team up to fight evil corporation” story. It’s full of themes now common in manga and anime: the aftermath and consequence of war and threat of a new war. The abuse and weaponization of children. I wonder why Japanese comics is so obsessed with child abuse and child endangerment considering Japan is one of the safest countries on Earth for children. Evil corporations where the shortcut to showing how evili they are is that they exploit and abuse children – too easy, really.

No Guns Life is an entertaining mix of familiar genre conventions with a nutty Science Fiction high concept. The beauty of manga is their utterly unironic, unself-conscious embrace of absurd, sometimes utterly goofy ideas with total sincerity. This is the second new manga series I’ve read this year that features characters whose heads and limbs are weapons. The other series is Chainsawman, also published by Viz, about a guy possessed by a chainsaw demon who can transform his head and limbs into – yup – chainsaws. That series is played for bloody slapstick comedy.

No Guns Life is a neo-noir cyberpunk thriller that follows in the tradition of classics like Blade Runner. The first volume of the manga series by Tasuku Karasuma embraces the best tropes of the genre while also standing out for its originality.

Despite these shortcomings, No Guns Life is a must read manga that was clearly written for cyberpunk fans.

An unspoken tradition in the world of anime and manga is to make things into guns. Swords are among the first weapons to become guns, for example. Even Western anime like RWBY honor the tradition by turning scythes, boots, and even suitcases into guns. Honestly, it’s surprising that it took until the manga No Guns Life, published in English by Viz, to turn an entire person into a gun.