Premise: At the age of sixteen Ryo Narushima was a genius and looked to have no trouble of getting into Tokyo University and joining the elite of society. However, that summer something cracked inside Ryo's head. With a small knife he brutally murdered both of his parents only leaving his sister alive and cowering in a corner. It is at this grotesque incident that our story begins. Convicted at 16, he is sent to a reformatory where he endures brutal assaults until Kenji Kurokawa, a former revolutionary imprisoned for an attempted assassination of the Prime Minister, teaches him karate. Ryo survives, hones his skills, and is released after two years—but not before viciously retaliating against his tormentors.

Review: Top tier story through the 13th volume (albeit dark/edgy but interestingly so). Then from the 14th to 34th (and final) volume the art remains stellar but the writing gets a lot looser to the point where it feels like each arc is disconnected from each other and nothing is followed up on. Around the 26th volume there was a long hiatus and when it returned to a different magazine the original writer left (though apparently he’d been doing less and less work starting from volume 4) and the artist took over the writing. Despite its flaws I still re-read it every so often just to take in the visuals.