Project ARMS

(Viz, 2002-2009)
TM and (c) Viz Communications, Inc.
Reads right to left; Graphic novel; b&w.

Nowadays nanomachines (microscopic man-made robots) are a hot topic: Their technological potential threatens to either revolutionize science or doom society with unintended environmental consequences. With this mindset, the team that produced Spriggan/Striker comes up with another scenario involving a high-school student caught up in global governmental conspiracies.

After facing off against the new student Hayato, who wants to slice and dice him into pieces, Ryo learns that he, too, is not the normal student he thought he was. Ryo soon becomes the target of a covert military operation and his girlfriend Katsumi is kidnapped. Flashing back to repressed childhood memories, Ryo discovers that his arm has the latent power to become a destructive killing machine. Will Hayato become his ally to protect others like them before a shadow organization marks them all for death?

More fully realized than its anime adaptation, this story puts another spin on the genre of alienated youth fighting against the world. With characteristic detail in depicting brain-busting fighting sequences and vein-popping transformations, Project Arms caters to the action-adventure crowd that likes underdogs who can teach both bullies and bodyguards a lesson in brutality.

— Oliver Chin

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