Is Jormungand Worth Reading? Review & Where to Read

Overview

Jormungand follows Koko Hekmatyar, an arms dealer with her own private security team, as she brokers weapons deals across war zones and gray markets around the world. Along for the ride is Jonah, a new recruit and former child soldier who hates guns more than anyone else on the team — which makes him Koko's new bodyguard, because of course it does.

What it does well

Koko is the reason this works. She's relentlessly cheerful, weirdly generous to her team, and almost impossible to read — you're never quite sure how much of her sunny personality is genuine and how much is a tool she uses to control every room she walks into. That ambiguity carries the whole series, and it's more interesting the longer it goes on.

The action is a big part of the appeal too. The gunfights are inventively staged, with a real sense of who's where and why, instead of just noise and muzzle flashes. Koko's team of mercenaries — Valmet, Lehm, the trigger-happy twins, Chinatsu the analyst — all get enough personality that the ensemble never feels like filler between action beats. It's a genuinely fun group to spend time with.

What keeps it from being pure style, though, is Jonah. His history as a child soldier gives the arms-dealing plot actual weight: this is a manga about the people who profit from war constantly rubbing up against someone the war actually happened to, and that tension pays off in some real gut-punch moments buried inside all the gunfire and gallows humor.

Where it falls short

The globe-trotting, arc-by-arc structure means quality varies a fair amount — some stops on Koko's world tour are terrific, others feel like padding between the arcs that actually matter. The tone can wobble, too: broad, cartoonish comedy sits right next to real war-crime horror, and the jump between the two isn't always handled smoothly.

It's also more interested in characters and set pieces than in one tightly plotted overarching story. If you want a driving central plot working toward a clear endpoint, Jormungand is closer to a hangout series with excellent action than a slow-burn thriller building to something.

Verdict

Gorgeous gunfights and a genuinely strange sense of humor make this one of the more purely fun looks at the arms trade you'll find in manga, and Jonah's backstory keeps it from being empty style over substance. The uneven pacing and occasional tonal whiplash keep it out of the top tier, but as globe-trotting action with real personality behind it, Jormungand delivers.