Death Jam

    (Tokyopop, 2006)
™ and © 2002 Jeon Sang Young, Haksan Publishing Co., Ltd

Imagine Yu-Gi-Oh with goggles, samurai swords which double as pistols, and a motorbike, and you get Ssowori — a metropolitan mercenary. Unfortunately, he is operating without a license, so the bandana-wearing Muchaca Smooth is assigned the task of assassinating this renegade.
However, his prey is elusive, though Ssowori is destined to encounter trouble at every turn. This kid has wooed the girlfriend of the mobster Kumbarajya and insulted the bed-ridden Big Daddy, the head of the Guldari family. But Muchaca is in hot water himself, competing against his fellow bounty hunter Smack and facing the whole Taiji gang who want to avenge a comrade destroyed in a street race.
Translated from the Korean manhwa, Seoul is transformed into “Soul City,” cloned from New York hip-hop and urban decay. Brashly reeking of foul language and sociopathic characters, surely this creation celebrates jamming on mass murder and sado-masochism. Though some quarters may consider such badness “cool,” the overall effect is numbing desensitization to senseless violence and the sinking feeling that this series still has further depths to plumb.
— Oliver Chin
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