Jormungand (2012) User Reviews

above average action anime

[joelherro · 8/10 · 28 June 2012]

There is some interesting themes in this anime, since its main protagonist is an arms dealer and her companions are mercenaries, including a boy soldier...

Koko is the leader of a troupe of mercenaries and she picks up Jonah along the way, a boy no more than 10 years old and has him join her merry gang of killers. Of course, these killers are actually good guys who are just doing a service (selling arms to despots around the world), but they never kill anyone who doesn't deserve it haha...

Its never overly violent or exploitative, despite the subject matter and the characters are likable enough, although while the animation is good, the female characters don't look very female, but that was probably done on purpose...watch it if you liked 'Black Lagoon' (which I did)...

Koko and Jonah are pretty good characters,mind you!

[Irishchatter · 8/10 · 14 August 2019]

I like Koko for always having the cheeky smirk on her especially being in dangerous situations and there's Jonah with his not bothered attitude but is a badass shooter all the same.

Totally liked the serious gun action scenes including the comedy. This anime might as well be Black Lagoon's distant cousin regarding its similar assassin topic.

Highly recommend this anime if you are a big fan of the action genre!

Strange but interesting

[JaydoDre · 7/10 · 10 December 2012]

So we have a bunch of strongly contrasting characters adventuring and overcoming different dangers together, all in the business of selling guns. The story concentrates on the child soldier in the group - Jonah. Naturally he has some mental issues to work out, but each member seems to have some sort of screw in their head loose. Sounds like fun, except the series does not flow very well. It is all a bit...awkward.

When a crazy weirdo like me says "awkward" I believe it carries some weight. If I try to pinpoint the awkward then I stumble upon the logic. It has a strange logic this anime. Examples should serve plenty: Not to spoil too much, but at one point our anti-heroes are surrounded by a small group of enemy soldiers outside of a house, so they suddenly disarm themselves and tell the ambushing soldiers that a smaller more vulnerable team is hiding inside the house so the soldiers go right past them and attack the smaller team inside. If you are trying to make a point that an easier prey is inside the house, why would you disarm yourself? You are in the open, you are unable to defend yourself and the people inside the house are armed and in cover. This same kind of logic can be seen throughout the whole series and comes back in what the characters say to each other.

I know that the creators are trying to show how crazy everyone is, including adding odd behavior and dialogue, but it feels like they haven't got it quite right yet. It's like a normal person trying to impersonate a crazy person. I feel more can be done with the ideas at hand and the "crazy" can be better.

Nonetheless, the sound effects and the animation are great, with the style scales tipped just slightly away from the Japanese style and towards more Westernized mature animation along the lines of Ghost In The Shell (very vaguely along the lines though), which can be both a plus and a minus depending on what you like. Add to it slight hints of straight shota and yuri and you got yourself an interesting anime.

*UPDATE: So far the 2nd season of this anime has been much more coherent. I like where this is going...

One of the Greatest Action Anime I saw in a while

[Sabre_Wolf · 10/10 · 22 December 2013]

I loved the series it was so good and I found all of the main characters interesting and the story-lines of the series were also very good and at least seemed to be well thought out.

My favorite character in this is the protagonist Koko Haktemeyer I found her interactions with her team quite interesting most notably those with Jonah and Valmet (particularly Valmet). Also Koko herself is a very interesting character with her guile and intellect also her accomplices are also each interesting characters also given their backgrounds.

All in all this is a great action anime and a must for any action fan!

Really Awesome Anime!

[mercfma · 10/10 · 25 April 2014]

If you've seen Black Lagoon & like those immoral, real life, guns, violence, & ex-military assassins, then you'll love Jormungand. Right off the get go do you get an amazing plot, good character background and a mostly serious vibe but much more comical and happy feel then Black Lagoon(If you've seen it you'll understand right off the bat what i mean). The plot was really solid my only complaint is the last episode, and not a big complaint, without going into detail i can just say i wish they would of done one more episode but the way it ended was a decent ending i just wanted more!! xD

I give Jormungand a 4.5/5 (only reason i don't give it a 5/5 is i feel for the type of anime it was it might have done better with a more serious realistic vibe in certain situations, but some might disagree and like the friendly vibe, Really just your preference but i highly recommend this show regardless!)

Anime you should watch if you like Black Lagoon

[bradgranz-77566 · 8/10 · 7 September 2022]

Jormungand was a great series up to a certain point but I talk about that later.

Anyways I thought it had pretty great English voice acting from Anastasia Munoz and Micah Solusod The show is filled with memorable characters it also has a pretty great story and the action sequences were entertaining.

Now my huge problem with this anime was its ending I thought it was pretty terrible

It literally one of the worst animes endings I saw.

So I still recommend watching this anime especially if you like anime like Black Lagoon or even Phantom requiem just warned The ending is pretty terrible. So you have been warned.

A very violent anime

[Snake550 · 10/10 · 12 November 2019]

Jormungand is a very violent and bloody anime that talks about gun traffic, its characters are the strong point of the story.

Koko to me is the best character of Jormungand she is smart and knows how this world of arms dealers works.

Another character that draws attention is Valmer she is violent and skillful with the knife my second favorite character of Jormungand.

And lastly Jonathan a child soldier and very skilled with guns I don't have much to say about him.

The technical part of the anime is good, looks good and the soundtrack is great.

For those who like violent anime Jormungand is perfect.

This anime is something else

[sabiiriin · 10/10 · 13 August 2023]

Literally one of the best animes 10/10 Poor new viewers don't know about it But if you find it know that you're lucky Jormungand and black lagoon have some similarities no wonder they're both awesome!

Jonah is a child soldier which makes him very unique and Koko is both funny and genius And her group are one of kind, love them all Especially Valmet!

Anyways give it a shot, you will definitely love it at first episode.

Ps: I saw some people complaining about it because of the guns they have... Like wtf?!

Calm down it's just anime those guns won't hurt you lol

Another great anime Psycho pass.

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME

[skykraoroz · 1/10 · 13 October 2023]

The entire anime builds up this really cool concept and at the end it all feels rushed together. Like I've been in love with this anime up until the last season. The ending makes no sense the characters developed backwards at the end and no gratification comes from watching the last episode. I quit watching the moment they changed the main characters motives with no proof he would go that route. I genuinely am so disappointed that the coolest gun anime I've seen in a while was written in a way that shows the dark side of the world like Black Lagoon. Black lagoon however has a great story start to finish. DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

Refreshing series that hooked me in the first 15 minutes

[dameon_green · 9/10 · 5 September 2020]

The first episode there was a strange but balanced mix of casual brutality, dark humor and just a sliver of heart that quickly marked "Jormungand" as something different.

For full disclosure the premise itself was unique enough it sat at the bottom of my queue for months because I had trouble reconciling this fairly serious subject being handled by an anime, but once Jormungand was next I was pleasing to be proven wrong.

The animation style was mirror of the series as a whole, simple and clean and yet at the same time technically perfect when it came to the details that counted.

Not everything was flawless, not every episode had the same depth and some of the stories / sub-plots seemed uncharacteristically outlandish at first (but unfolded interestingly) but as a whole it was a fantastic watch.

Pros:

• Great cast of characters.
• Depth hiding under the action.
• Excellent music and score.
• Above average and consistent animation.
• Surprising beauty at times.

Cons:

• Animation quality dibs a bit in the second season.
• Some predictability.
• The end to the arc needed more than 2 episodes to complete, but I'm biased there.

fun all around

[fh147 · 8/10 · 27 November 2023]

This is an anime by my heart amazing action likeable characters that are bad but had some good parts to them. Just morally grey characters all around.

This is one of those stories. I can only really think about being shown in anime because this would maybe get censor of would be made to a different thing which would have been weird but I like the little child soldiers journey through the world with all those weirdos and coco.

I mostly just absorbing watching it. It is so stylish and had so much personality and just fun all around some , deeper themes about reality and war and in the last episode I realized what the f*** kind of world is this I just thought it was our world, but this is like all our world problem on turbo mode very interesting.

You can enjoy this anime on two layers the first is the characters and the action and the second is philosophy and deeper meaning which to my friend was the best part, for me it was the first part so I would recommend this wholeheartedly.

Boring characters, pointless story and a pedophile lady.

[Lukasmj · 4/10 · 19 April 2024]

"Jormundgand" has a really strong concept - a lot could have been done with the story of an orphaned boy whose parents were killed in the war, which made him dislike weapons, but as a soldier he is forced to use them.

The emphasis here is on "SHOULD", because "Jormundgand" unfortunately doesn't manage to introduce the viewer to this story well.

At the beginning you get a very short scene of the main character looking dreamily into the sky and explaining his situation in an internal monologue, but then you're thrown straight into the series, which unfortunately meant that I had a hard time finding any interest in this anime.

The characters are hardly introduced, so I'm not interested in them at all apart from the main character.

In addition, it's not clear at the beginning whether there is any plan or goal - that just makes the series boring, because how am I supposed to get into the series if I don't know what it's working towards?

In addition, the characters have an almost laughable amount of "plot armor" - characters whose daily business is killing can't even hit someone from 5 meters away with an assault rifle or shoot out a few car tires.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the leader of the whole group feels a very questionable attraction to the main character, who is a whole 10 years younger than her. She's constantly touching the poor boy and while you could argue that the lady is just very "touchy" and there's nothing more to it, at some point she clearly crosses that line and it's just disgusting. Here too, fans of the series try to argue that this is just meant to illustrate certain character traits of hers, but the author knew exactly what he was doing here and how this all looked like.

All of this is a shame because, as I said, the premise is very interesting. I also liked the character design and the intro song of the first season is definitely catchy, but unfortunately this anime is just bad...

If you're looking for something similar to "Jormundgand" I would recommend "Black Lagoon" - the anime is much better!