Well, this is an interesting series about an Arms Dealer who is a genuine contradiction with a title that initially does not make any sense, “Jormungand”.

Let’s talk about her. The potential albino (or perhaps she doesn’t get enough sun; hard to tell), white on white, is Koko Hekmatyar, a young arms dealer who sells weapons under HCLI, an international shipping corporation that secretly deals in the arms trade. As one of the company’s unofficial weapon dealers, she carefully sells weapons in many countries while avoiding the local authorities and law enforcement agencies as most of her work is actually illegal under international law. But money is where you find it and she has no reluctance to sell to anyone, but has a caliber of conscience.

Most of the people up there are her bodyguards and have extensive military experience, so let’s run them down (it is a rather capacious cast, both on this side, plus those forces that wish to do her harm):

William Nelson, known as Wiley, explosive expert.
Lehm Brick, second in command and former Delta Force member.
Mao, former artillery office. Discharged after a military accident and grabbed up by Koko.
Sofia Valmet, former Finnish soldier and an expert with knives. In love with Koko.
Koko
Lutz, former sniper from a SWAT unit.
Akihiko Tojo, former member of Japan’s SR unit. When dismissed by them, Koko hired him within 20 minutes.
R (Renato Socci), a former Italian Army intelligence officer who served in the Bosnian Wars as a UN peacekeeper.
Ugo, former mafia driver, he survived a shootout between his group and Koko as he was disgusted by drugs.
Jonah (Jonathan Mar), newest member, he has a vendetta to kill Koko’s brother, Kaspar.

The series is actually two parts. The first season of twelve tell the tales of Koko and her dealings with selling arms, avoiding the CIA, handling rival arms dealers and trying to make Jonah less of a boy soldier and more of a person. The ‘second season’ tells the story of what Jormungand is all about and how to get it to do what Koko wants.

For a show that has a lot of shooting and killing in it, the bloodshed is really kept to a minimum. It’s just the matter-of-fact way they approach what they do. The stories are compelling, even when they bring in the totally off-her-rocker Minami “Miami” Amada, a robotics expert who is easily distracted by butterflies and smokes too much (yes, there is a huge amount of smoking by everyone).

I liked this show, owing to the different plot. No squealing school girls, no giant fighting robots, no harems (although one could argue it is a reverse harem, but like “Ghost in the Shell” is a reverse harem with no real meaning). There is a little skin shown and Valmet is certainly one ‘healthy’ girl, but this is also kept to a minimum. The identity of Jormungand is kept pretty well hidden until Koko tells all what it is about, but she is also an odd fish. Nothing is as it seems and no one can really be trusted…..just like real life.

This is not a bridge series, as you lurch from one show to the next and need something in-between to watch. This is one well worth putting on your “need to see” list.

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           7 (Functional)
Plot                  8 (Second half gets compelling)
Pacing              8 (Can turn frenetic fast)
Effectiveness    8 (It does work, even with red herrings)
Conclusion       7 (It doesn’t end, more of ‘you guess’ of a conclusion)
Fan Service      4 (A similar show would be “Gurren Lagaan”)

Overall            8 (Sometimes gets too ‘bulletproof’)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Always have a plan.