All You Need Is Kill

arkfa Jun 11, 2014

9.5

All You Need Is Kill Some stories are good,some are good for relaxation,some try to mix the first two,but the masterpiece will always be the one that abides by its principles.Plain effiecient. There couldnt have been a better story involving time conundrum,war,mecha,some elements of a love story with a good twist and ending.The story itself is refreshingly unique and the elements of time loop are explained well.The story keeps the details to minimum about the settings,backgrounds etc.It would be little better if it had been elaborated,but it doesnt diminish the beauty of the story in any way.Overall the manga is quite short,could have been a little longer,but a masterpiece. The Art is amazing.The protagonist is similar to Light from Death note(same illustrator),and you get that familiar rise of heartbeat as the story progresses to its climax.The details done on the rest of the cast,Rita,the battle scenes are all very vivid. The characters just get stuck in you.I just loved each and every one of them.Keiji is just like Light from Death Note minus the delusion,analytical,sharp,his growth is potrayed very subtly,there isnt much of those 'war hero' moments,i dont hate them it just derails the seriousness of every war movie/anime/maga. Rita is amazing,i just loved the way her character comes into the story ,the cutesy side to her,the feeling she finally gets to share with Keiji,the ultimate soldier. Overall I would kill to have a sequel,but the story is just perfect,no unnecessary drama,just plain effecient story.If Only the Hollywood adaptation would stick to the original it would be worth dying for.

FullmetalDragon Nov 28, 2016

9

It may be short, but by no means does that mean it loses anything. All You Need is Kill somehow manages to sweep you up in a rollercoaster of a story in only 2 volumes, and I love it for that. Set in what appears to be the relatively near future, Earth has been invaded by Mimics. Once they take over an area, it becomes uninhabitable to humans, so they have been fighting against them for years. Unfortunatly, humans have made almost no headway in the fight against them. That is, except one team, who seem to be the only ones capable of fighting the Mimics. The main character, Keiji, one day wakes up from an extremely vivid dream of dying on the battlefield the day before he is set to go out onto the battlefield for the first time. Only he quickly discovers it was not a dream, but in fact he is looping back into the past at the point he dies. After he realises he cannot escape from the loop without surviving the fight with the mimics, he becomes determined to escape. This is an extremely psycological series, and it takes you on a serious emotional rollercoaster. Due to it's short length, of course there are many things that are not revealed, but everthying important is covered, and the ending feels very satisfactory. Within only a small length of time, I fell in love with the characters, the premise, and basically everything about this series. I would highly reccomend it to anyone who likes psycological and gory manga. Review for November 2016 DMMC

InPeril Dec 3, 2021

8

Saw it in the store one day and decided to buy it because it looked cool, pretty solid story, (Although pretty short) but a lot better than the Hollywood adaptation. And the art by Takeshi Obata is amazing.