Ichi the Killer Review

“There is no love in your violence”- Masao kakihara

Ichi the killer is a manga written by Hideo Yamamoto which ran in Weekly Young Sunday from 1998 to 2001. Before we get deep into this since this is a spoiler filled review I must issue a content warning to you my audience. As someone who is not easily disturbed or unnerved Ichi the Killer did me dirty, so if you have a weak constitution for violence, gore, sexual assault, abuse, mutilation, or anything of that sort I implore you to proceed with caution as this manga holds nothing back, in some cases I wish it did.

I’ll say it outright before i begin, I do like Ichi the Killer but I do not recommend it as it is very very disturbing and I feel most people wouldn’t enjoy it, I wouldn't even say i enjoyed it, I just appreciate it but I’d rather not revisit it for a while.

I guess the best thing to address first is the film adaptation by Takashi Miike. This is not a review of the film, but this movie is infamous for being banned in a multitude of different countries for it's obscene violence and off putting themes. Full disclosure, I have yet to watch the film because i could only imagine if they translated even a fraction of the torture scenes to live action what that’d look like.

Also some other things to clear up, I'm not a huge fan of gore, but I can handle it. I can watch things like Hostel or games like Dead Space and be fine but this manga really got to me in some places. More specifically i don't like any damage done below the waist, especially to the legs from the knee down. I think that's a byproduct of watching Pet Semetary at a young age.

Childhood trauma aside let's talk about the technical side of things, that being the artwork. The art is scarily good, Yamamoto has a way of leaving an imprint by using things like unique facial expressions, shadows, and especially gore. The torture scenes are so gruesome and sadistic I hesitate to show them, so take this instead. Now the things depicted I wish not to describe but needless to say Yamamoto does too good of a job of making you feel the impact of every cut, punch, and needle. The artwork is one of the major reasons I stuck with it, there is something just macabrely attractive about how ugly the author draws his characters, specifically shoutouts to Ichi’s dopey and ominous “smile” and Kakihara’s design which is fucking sick and perfectly exemplifies how off his rocker he really is.

Next let's talk basic plot, some schlubs contact a guy named “Ichi” to kill the head of a Yakuza clan, and steal money from his safe, this catches the attention of high ranking Yakuza enforcer Kakihara, and Kakihara sets out to find out who killed his boss, while our group of thieves plot to eradicate Kakihara’s newfound crime family, by calling upon Ichi. Much intrigue and gruesome homicide follows. It is a pretty standard but interesting enough plot that is carried by it's characters and the unflinching violence.

Speaking of lets talk character, because this is what a majority of this review is gonna focus on. I hate them. Which is a good thing because it's very clear that Yamamoto didn’t want us to like anybody. There is no “good guy” in Ichi the Killer. There is a protagonist in Ichi, and an Antagonist in Kakihara, that’s it. And honestly I really like that. I like that Yamamoto does not force us to pick a side but puts us in a helpless position as we watch the horror unfold.

Going down the list first up is the titular “Ichi”. Ichi is a traumatized, mentally unstable pseudo-sadist. Even though he is our protagonist he shockingly absent from a majority of the story, only really showing up a few times in the beginning and in the final act. Other than that he just sporadically pops up to remind the reader that *insert scene of shinji saying “im so fucked up”*. Now i don’t like ichi, I feel bad for him because he is a traumatized man who’s just being taken advantage of but just because i sympathize doesn't mean i enjoy his presence. The descriptions of his fantasies and the way he carries out his murders are just bone chilling, and serve to make him into something inhuman, he does what he does because he doesn't want to do it. His tendency to uhhh, unseal his pudding after murdering someone is very unsettling, and his confrontation with the prostitute’s boyfriend and the prostitute herself is what throws him into the unlikeable and honestly quite terrifying pile. Put simply he's fucking crazy and needs to satiate his desire somehow.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have our antagonist Kakihara, who for all intents and purposes is the most entertaining character to watch. He just has this aura about him that reminds me a lot of some cross between Goro Majima and Heath Ledger's Joker. He is just this fucked up masochist who does whatever her has to get his way. Any scene he’s in just leaves the reader in suspense for when he flies off the handles and just goes apeshit. There is a certain danger to him, he can be air quotes “kind” but that’s only to a certain number of people. Other than that nothing is off the table for Kakihara. For the most part he is our POV character which is interesting since he is our main antagonist, but i feel this was done because he is at the center of all of this. Plus watching him deal with less than willing clientele is grim and heart pounding to watch. He contrasts perfectly with Ichi as someone who takes the utmost joy in whatever cruel acts he commits, he reminds me of Alex from A clockwork orange, just someone who takes kindly to being called a perverted S&M motherfucker and wears it as a badge of honor.

Then we have our excommunicateds, the group that contracts Ichi and caused this whole mess to occur. Those being the drug addict Inoue, the chinese pimp Ryuu, the unfortunate Noboru, and Jiiji, who i fugging hate. With the exception of Inoue and Jiiji these are actually somewhat likeable characters who get fucking decimated. Honestly the only important member of this group is Jiiji. Jiiji if i had to put it is the true villain of this story. His motive is to clean up the Shinjuku Kabukicho district of Tokyo by any means necessary come hell or high water. He’s an unscrupulous ex-cop who will use Ichi any way he can to achieve his goal. He manipulates and implants false memories in Ichi’s make him into the mindless killer he is.

The final group of characters worth mentioning is Kakihara’s sect, in specifics the twins Jiro and Saburo, the hitman Kaneko, and hostess Karen. To get them out of the way i find the twins to be the most disturbing characters in the story from their actions alone since it's very very gross what they do. They genuinely unnerve and distress me when i think about them and they are the most despicable characters the the only time the audience gets a sense of catharsis is when Ichi mercilessly slays them.

Karen is genuinely a likeable character and is pretty fun to follow, as a comrade of Kakihara it’s interesting to see someone who doesn’t really fear him but is infatuated with him. The reveal that she’s been the mole in the group and the lady on the phone sewing these thoughts of sadism and sexual violence into Ichi’s head is a fascinating turn. Her demise is a shame but expected and serves to really show how cutthroat Jiiji is.

Kaneko is my favorite character in the story, as he is the only character i feel you as an audience member can relate to. He just seems like a genuinely nice guy who got fucked over by an absurd situation. His obsession with proving to himself he is not a coward ultimately leads him to his grave, much in contrast to Ichi who wants to take comfort in the fact he is a cowardly child. Kaneko is the tragic hero of this narrative. He is the closest we come to having a good guy, and when your supposed “good guy” is a yakuza hitman well you know what they say with friends like these, you’d better not have any enemies. Him contrasting with Ichi where Ichi is a coward who calmly can kill anyone who “bullies” him, Kaneko carries himself in a confident enough manner but loses his cool under pressure, which is a very nice touch of characterization seeing how his son Takeshi ends up.

Overall the most interesting arc of the narrative is watching the build up to Ichi and Kakihara’s confrontation. As Kakihara languishes and loves every waking moment leading up to meeting his shinigami. Over the course of this time though his demeanor switches from confidence, to sick perversion, to obsession, and ends in absolute fear. Watching his degradation of his mental state is honestly what kept me reading.

That’s also something I’d like to speak on, what is Ichi the Killers’ hook? Because honestly when i was reading I wasn't enjoying it as i said earlier. Like it wasn’t something like one piece where it got me jacked, or something like 20th Century Boys where it was an enthralling narrative. It felt like I was watching a brutal crime being committed, and I wanted to see the people committing it get their just deserts. But in the time being i felt frozen with fear, I was reading it because I would be left thinking about it more having left it with no conclusion. It’s a story that grabs you and makes you watch just awful things, and you can almost feel the author looking back at you saying, “fucked up isn’t it?”.

So what do we take away from Ichi the Killer? Well I’d compare it to No Country for Old Men. At it's conclusion Ichi the Killer shows the audience that this cycle of violence Jiiji is trying to stop will never stop, if he keeps propagating it. The world is full of sickos and people who are struggling with their own demons. The characters shown in this story are that of desire, from kakihara’s desire for agony, to Inoue’s addiction, to Jiiji’s desire for justice, desire is the mindkiller. And as Jiiji says, Shinjuku is a place of desire, that eats people like Ichi and makes them look normal.

What is most disturbing about Ichi the Killer is the implication that without someone as awful as jiiji, people like Kakihara, Saburo, and Jiro would just be allowed to exist. Just awful men who do nothing but take and ruin the world, and they live with no punishment. The only thing that can potentially save the good of the world is a greater evil. The same can be said about Ichi as he is no hero, he doesn't fight for justice he fights for his own selfish, perverse motives, he is, in effect, desire incarnate.

Towards the end the concept of ultimate despair is thrown around, and that is what I felt at the conclusion of this story, seeing Takeshi in Ichi’s role is affirmation that people like Ichi can’t be stopped by anyone but themselves, and when one falls another one will take their place like nothing happened. The cycle of senseless violence will always continue and the worst part is, there is no greater reason to it. There is no greater meaning to Ichi the killer, no moral lesson, no salvation to gain, it simply ends and tells the audience “thats it” we don’t get a heroic moment, we dont get any joy from it at all. There is no “The End” just an ending. There isnt any hype fight scenes, there are no cool moves that anyone pulls off, it's just stark uncontrolled violence. There are no heroes to save the day, just Ichi, and within Ichi’s violence, there is no love. I need to go take a shower and, just go read something happy or something. Ill catch you later.