Title: Kill Blue Vol. 1
Author: Tadatoshi Fujimaki
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Digital
Pages: 193
Genre: Supernatural, Action, Comedy
Publication Date: June 3, 2025
The Story
Ogami is a legendary hitman. One day, he comes home after a mission when a wasp followed him, stinging him on the neck. The next day, he’s a middle school student. The wasp was artificially created by a pharmaceutical company that carries a powerful anti-aging drug. Stuck as a middle schooler, his boss gives him an assignment to check out a school to see if it is suitable for his daughter; however, when he arrives, he discovers that Noren Mitsuoka, the daughter of the pharmaceutical company that reversed his age, is in his class. His mission changes to get closer to her so that he can have a chance at reverting his body back to normal. The only problem is that she has a deep disdain for men.
Characters
Juuzou Ogami is a middle-aged hitman in his late 30s. He’s divorced, has a child, and never graduated from elementary school. Since a young age, he was drawn into the world of hitmen and assassins. This presents a challenge because he has a hard time talking with children, so when he becomes one and has to attend middle school, it becomes a major barrier for him. So much so that he ends up being labeled a creep. Despite that, he likes learning and finds things such as history and mathematics interesting… until he comes across algebra and gets completely stuck. This allows him to make a friend in Ryo Shiraishi, who tutors him. As a character, there are a lot of layers to Ogami. He thinks like a hitman, but is also growing up all over again by filling in the blanks he missed out on thanks to being pulled into the world of assassins at such a young age. Trying to balance being a hitman, a kid, and finding a way to get his body back is a lot to juggle, but the fact that he can speaks to his legendary status as a hitman.
Ryo is a kind and outgoing kid who saw Ogami struggling with algebra. When he tutors Ogami and causes him to get a perfect score on his test, he ends up being labeled as a Master. Such honorifics cause him a bit of embarrassment, but despite his pleas for Ogami to stop, he keeps giving them. Outside of this, Ryo doesn’t have much of a role other than being the one person that Ogami can talk to. That changes a bit when he meets Noren.
Noren is the daughter of a well-off family that owns the pharmaceutical company that is responsible for Ogami’s anti-aging. The thing is, her father wants her to remain in the family business and carry herself with dignity; however, the rich life isn’t for her. She secretly works at her uncle’s ramen shop for free simply because she enjoys it (and her uncle shares a disdain for high society, too). Because she’s self-aware of her good looks, she is constantly hounded by boys asking for her hand in love. Because she has to endure that nearly every day of her life, she has grown to hate men; however, something about Ogami seems a bit different, and she’s finding herself getting a bit closer to him. Her character seems as if it would be a classic tsundere, but it’s not. There’s a lot more to Noren than what there is on the surface, making her quite the layered character, too. Not only is she reserved and defensive, but she also has dreams of just being a normal girl. On top of that, she’s quick to make some rather brash decisions… one of which causes Ogami quite a bit of trouble!
Final Thoughts
I have to say, for a series that has two well-layered main characters, the overall presentation fell far from the mark. Getting stung by a wasp and anti-aging is a little far-fetched; however, after learning about how the wasps were created, it seemed to make sense. In the world of hitmen and assassins, unorthodox things like this happen all the time, so that plot point wasn’t that bad. Everything started to go downhill once Ogami entered middle school.
Almost immediately, the plot point of finding out whether or not the school was suitable for his daughter was forgotten. In its place, a more convenient plot point for Ogami to get his body back was introduced, and while roadblocks were expected, the manga didn’t stick around with those roadblocks to let them breathe. The entire ordeal with her hating men was explained and then almost resolved, becoming an afterthought almost immediately. Instead, the manga created new roadblocks, one after another, and fired them at us in rapid succession that it didn’t allow for any of them to breathe.
We went from Noren hating men, to opening up and befriending Ogami, to her father declaring anyone that marries her inherits the pharmaceutical company, to her randomly grabbing Ogami out of a crowd and announcing that they are dating (just pretend) to introducing a bunch of hitmen and assassins, and upper echelon kids that Ogami is going to have to fight off because they all want Noren to themselves.
The plot points introduced here would normally play out over several volumes in a series, and yet, it was all jam-packed into the first volume. With the way things progressed, it seemed as if they knew the premise was going to be a bit far-fetched, so they threw everything at the wall at once in hopes that it would make things interesting enough to keep readers from dropping the series.
The funny thing is that it worked… slightly. I could see what they were going for; however, as I said, the problem was the execution. Had all of these plot points been built up over time rather than being rushed and shoved in our faces one after the other, this would have been a very compelling series, but the problem is that nothing was given the time to breathe. That sounds like this manga completely dropped the ball, but not so, because I said that it worked slightly. Even with the rapid-fire plot points, because they were interesting, it did make me keep reading.
What I wish, though, was some more depth to Ogami in his new school life. While I get that they wanted to go for a realistic approach by keeping Ogami within the realms of a middle schooler and not drawing too much attention to himself, I would have hoped that they would have leaned into some more dramatic ways for him to overcome his challenges. We kind of got that when Noren got kidnapped, and he felt compelled to rescue her; however, while on school grounds, we didn’t get that level of creativity. Had more thought been put into some of the resolutions to Ogami’s challenges, it probably would have made things a bit more interesting rather than keeping things relatively safe.
Overall, I got what they were going for, but the execution wasn’t there, and while I think this series does have its good points, without improvement in the volumes to come, I can’t see this series being anything more than average, maybe even slightly below average, at best. I’m hoping that it proves me wrong, though.
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media.
