▪	RELEASED BY:		VIZ MEDIA
		▪	AUTHOR / ART:		RYOJI MINAGAWA / KYOICHI NANATSUKI
		▪	FORMAT:		JAPANESE / BW
		▪	PAGES:		202
		▪	RATING:		OT
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		01/08/2008
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		01/10/2008
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		SCOTT CAMPBELL

Ryo, Hayato, Yakeshi and Kei are all ARMS – mere children implanted with nanotech limb enhancements that cause them to transform into grotesquely deformed and out-of-control super weapons. After coming through many fierce battles, Ryo arrives at the supercomputer Alice’s location ready to finally settle things once and for all. But despite Ryo’s amazing physical powers, he finds he’s no match for Keith Black’s powers of mind control. Instead of enemies, Ryo and his friends must fight the illusions in their own minds - a mental feat that may be beyond any of their abilities!

This manga is still a wonderful mess of future technology and people colliding in a way that brings out the most desperate and violent conflict. The blood and gore gets an extra helping in this particular volume – there is certainly a splatter or three. The scenery and surroundings are still some of the best visuals though. Expanses of wires, rubble and pipes span each page, creating a desolate industrial world gone wrong that suffocates the characters. More and more this series reminds us of the classic Akira and the world that the characters of that series inhabit. Situations and conflicts are becoming more mentally involved – psychic powers are growing and thus the resulting violence grows also. If anything, the series in itself is coming to a climax, whether it be the last one or not. Project Arms is very much about action, but it’s becoming more and more apparent that it has plenty to allude to and much to say about the chances of a desolate future and what that would mean for humankind. This mix of intelligent science fiction and brutal action make this series a continuing cyber-punk prize.

The extras available at the back of the volume are worth mentioning – I’m not sure if the extras for Project Arms have been detailed in any of the past reviews, but the ones in volume eighteen are great. First they showcase all the sound effects made throughout the volume, which are all shown in Japanese during the manga. They basically give the reader translations for each sound effect, so that we can know what’s going on and they don’t have to alter the artwork. Besides that, they also provide some write ups about the author and the artist, including information about their backgrounds and different manga and anime projects they have worked on in the past. It’s always nice to learn something about the people that are responsible for what we are reading – it’s a good window into why the story and art are they way they are often enough.

IN SUMMARY:
Project arms is a long and involving series bent on chaos that will hook any cyber-punk or action fan and reel them in without too much of a fight. Everything is destructible in this manga – its sci-fi anarchy at its best!