Mar 21, 2025
The Dark Trio of Shonen— Chainsaw Man, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Jigokuraku— have been cited by fans to have paved the way for a new age of darker, more morally complex titles to come out of the Shonen genre. Asura’s Verdict fits this new era perfectly. It is a new generation Death Note, with a protagonist who thinks he’s doing the right thing by sending bullies and those who do wrong to the underworld. The art so far is amazing. Asura’s design is crafted so that he looks non threatening on the surface, but capable of causing extreme fear with a broken smile.
The plot is
...
a rabbit hole that only descends with each passing chapter. For some reason, I got Dorohedoro vibes from the design of the demons as well as the chaos that floods the page whenever they appear. I’m genuinely interested to see what happens next. I am especially interested to see how Asura deals with the moral dilemma of (debatably) directly condemning people to brutal deaths that always outweigh their crime. Perhaps Asura may one day see himself as the “god of the new world,” or perhaps he’ll stick to his preset ideals and realize the severity of his disillusions.
Asura’s Judgement is a very emotional manga, and most of that comes from seeing how vile these bullies really are, serving as the buildup to Asura’s verdict. Asura as a character is very static yet unpredictable. He fits the blank-faced chaotic archetype (think of Kumagawa, Gin, Nagumo, Okita, etc.) He’s very entertaining in action, and in spite of his questionable deeds and blatant paranoia, he’s a very likable protagonist.
Other heroes revealed later down the line show further character development. Namely, Otori and Tatsumiya both are introduced to Asura and, while initially questioning his abilities and sanity, grow to become pseudo disciples of his. Hopefully they don’t get shafted and actually become important, reoccurring characters. Seeing their abuse and trauma is enough to make you sympathize with them, but the real development comes from how they behave AFTER recognizing Asura as a good person.
The villains, who mostly amount to people who have wronged Asura himself rather than serial killers or public criminals, are mostly one-dimensional and overtly evil. This is probably one of my only criticisms with this manga so far.
What made Death Note and stories like it so ingenious was the moral complexity in each and every frontline character. I could count on one hand how many characters go through that same complexity in Asura’s Verdict.
But this manga is still in its beginning stages and still very new. At nine chapters, it is a very worthwhile read. I can see this story becoming one of the greatest of this new trend of darker stories.
As always, if you’re interested in a manga, you might as well give it a shot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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