R the Spy

I didn’t mention R (Renato Socci) in my review of Jormungand for two reasons. First, I couldn’t really remember what he actually did in the first season. And second, it was revealed that he was a CIA spy at the end of the season, so I knew I’d get to write about him here.

Jormungand: Perfect Order (ヨルムンガンド PERFECT ORDER) is the second season of the Jormungand anime. It starts off with an arc about R in which he’s trying to play multiple sides of a dangerous situation.

R’s primary mission as a spy is to keep tabs on Koko for Book Man. Book Man wants to control Koko, not take her down. However, another one of Book Man’s underlings, Hex, wants to kill Jonah because she knows it will hurt Koko.

Since R is a nice guy, he obviously doesn’t want Jonah to be killed; Jonah is still a child. This puts R in the awkward situation of trying to protect Koko and Jonah from Hex while also negotiating with Book Man to call off the hit. And he has to make sure he doesn’t blow his cover, too.

In the end, R decides to reveal that he’s a spy to Koko before he gives his life to save both her and Jonah. While not the first member of Koko’s crew to die, this does make R the first member of her crew to die within the scope of the series.

The only other member to die was Echo, who died before the start of the series. R was Echo’s replacement, and so losing him was devastating for Koko. In fact, she was so upset that she carpet-bombed some mountains to take out R’s killer.

Lehm, Echo, and Wilee

One of the other arcs in Perfect Order goes into the backstories of Lehm, Echo, and Wilee. As I mentioned in my review of the first season, Lehm is my favorite character. Wilee is my second favorite, so it was great to see how the two of them were connected before joining Koko.

Originally, both Lehm and Echo were members of Delta Force. They met Wilee when they were tasked with demolishing a chemical plant during the first Gulf War and needed an explosives expert.

Later on, Lehm joined Koko before Echo and Wilee were also recruited. I wish we got to learn why exactly Lehm left Delta Force to join Koko. But it’s implied that both Echo and Wilee left so that they could continue to work alongside Lehm.

Wilee is the main character of this arc even though Lehm and Echo are involved too. It explains how Wilee became the man he is today. His parents and grandparents were architects, and he turned into a demolitions expert working for an arms dealer.

As Lehm explains, the fact that he and his team praised Wilee’s abilities in the Gulf War may have had something to do with this. Wilee was already a demolitions expert. But after that point, he apparently dove deeper into that role.

It’s also revealed that Wilee is the only member of Koko’s crew aside from Koko herself who has been blacklisted by the FBI. This is likely because while the other members of Koko’s crew are dangerous, Wilee has the capacity to become a huge terrorist threat all on his own.

Oh, and Wilee is also pretty sadistic when it comes to enemies making use of explosives. His calling card is to rewire enemy explosives and use them to kill those who originally laid them.

Jormungand Unleashed

Overall, I think Perfect Order is better than the first season of Jormungand. While I still love the finale of the Orchestra arc from the first season, Perfect Order’s arcs following Renato and Wilee are better than the arcs of Jormungand.

However, there is one, tiny problem with Perfect Order — the ending. I wasn’t a fan of how the season, and series, ended at all. I also wasn’t really all that surprised by the twist at the end. Though, I don’t really get the feeling that the twist was supposed to be all that surprising.

Back in the first episode of Jormungand, Koko tells Jonah that she’s an arms dealer to create world peace. That stuck with me ever since then because it seemed to go against everything she and her crew were doing. Nothing they did was peaceful.

At the end of Perfect Order, it’s revealed that Koko was telling the truth back then. She’s been using her role as an arms dealer to amass money to use to end all war. Her answer is Jormungand, a quantum computer connected to 126 satellites that allows her to manipulate information.

Using this, Koko can effectively shut down the skies, which cripples modern war efforts around the world. She can even manipulate GPS data, so ground forces get lost trying to reach their targets.

The problem is that she doesn’t activate Jormungand in earnest until the last scene of the anime and we don’t get to see the outcome. Also, as Kasper points out, there will still always be war. Just because modern planes no longer work and Koko can manipulate the spread of information doesn’t mean there won’t be war.

The end of the series makes her seem like a child who doesn’t understand how the world works. I think I would have rather had an ending in which Jonah killed her to stop Jormungand from going into effect.

Conclusion

Jormungand: Perfect Order is a 7/10 from me. That’s the same score that I gave the first season despite the fact that I think this season is better. I just can’t give Perfect Order an 8 due to the ending.

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Series Overview

Jormungand (ヨルムンガンド) is an action-adventure anime series about an eccentric group of arms dealers. When I first started the series, I wasn’t sure I was going to like it all that much. But by the end, I was glad to learn that there’s a second season.

I have so much other stuff I want to watch that I don’t know when I’ll get around to the second season. However, I added it to my list. So it’s going to be watched at some point. You can look forward to that if you’re a fan of Jormungand.

Anyway, the series follows an arms dealer by the name of Koko Hekmatyar, her boy soldier Jonathan “Jonah” Mar, and the rest of her criminal crew as they travel around the globe killing people and making a lot of money.

Koko’s group sells weapons to governments, militias, rebels, and basically anyone who needs a lot of firepower. However, that doesn’t mean there are no rules. Koko’s been in the game for a long time, and she can usually tell if a sale is going to be a waste of her time.

For example, in one early episode, a rebel group wants to buy weapons. But once Koko visits the battlefield, she determines that the sale isn’t worth it because the rebels are going to be wiped out in a matter of days anyway.

As an arms dealer, Koko is also always finding herself in life or death situations. Maybe a deal goes south and her team has to fight their way out. Maybe a national government is trying to bring them down. Or maybe there are rival arms dealers who want to eliminate them as competition.

No matter the threat, Koko’s team is able to protect their leader and get her to safety.

Koko’s Crew

Koko Hekmatyar herself isn’t a combatant. She shoots a gun like once throughout the whole season. But she’s interesting because of how she acts. She’s always smiling no matter the danger she’s in — and that’s because she thinks the leader should always smile.

Jonah is technically the protagonist of the series, I guess. But Koko definitely feels like the more important character. Anyway, he’s a child soldier who hates arms dealers because his hometown was destroyed in a war. He’s given to Koko by her brother.

Now for the supporting characters, who I think are more interesting than Koko and Jonah. I won’t be going through them all, though — just the ones who matter the most.

Ugo is Koko’s driver and a former mafia enforcer. You wouldn’t think he’s all that important, but he gets some development toward the end. The same goes for Mao, who’s a former artilleryman with the JSDF. He’s important in like one episode toward the end of the season.

Next, we have William “Wilee” Nelson, an explosives and demolition expert. If a road needs or building needs to be destroyed, Wilee is your man. Lutz is a former police counterterrorism sniper. While he’s a great shot, his background can make it difficult for him to perform his current job at times.

The final two members of Koko’s crew, and the most important ones, are Sofia “Valmet” Valmer and Lehm Brick. Valmet is the third in command and specializes in fighting with knives. She’s probably the supporting character with the most fleshed-out backstory.

Lehm is my personal favorite member of Koko’s crew and is second in command. He’s a former Delta Force operator who excels at just about everything. He’s often paired with Lutz on sniping duty when in the field.

Extremely Good (At Times)

At times I loved Jormungand, and at times I wasn’t a huge fan of it either. Let’s start with the part of the series I wasn’t as much of a fan of, the craziness of it all.

I think Jormungand would have benefitted from being a lot more serious than it was. The characters can still be a bit weird. I assume you have to be a little crazy to be a member of an arms dealer’s bodyguard unit. But it went a bit far at times, such as Valmet’s obsession with Koko.

Valmet can be written as a lesbian without her fawning over Koko at every moment. It’s not like changing that aspect of her would erase LGBT+ representation. It would just make her more normal. Also, the fact that she only uses knives is pretty “anime.”

Oh, and Koko’s weird too.

The part of the series I loved is when it suddenly gets extremely serious. These moments showed me just how good the series could be if more of it was that way. An example of this comes in the Orchestra arc.

Orchestra is a hitman who likens the sound of gunfire to an orchestra. He works in a pair with a high school girl named Chinatsu (who doesn’t wear panties when on missions). They’re a weird pair of characters. But, everything gets extremely real at the end of the arc.

Lutz snipes Orchestra through the chest and then again through the head, killing him. However, he freezes up when he sees Chinatsu because he didn’t train to be a sniper to kill children. Then, later in the arc, Lehm snipes Chinatsu in Lutz’s place.

The series makes you think this quirky girl won’t die because of her age. But then that thought is shattered by the reality that these are arms dealers and hitmen. If they need to kill a child who poses a threat, they will.

Conclusion

I gave Jormungand a 7/10. It was a good anime and could have been an 8/10 if it took itself a bit more seriously. I’ll also say that while I didn’t like the OP the first time I watched it, it definitely grew on me. That shot of Lehm with his sniper (pictured above) is the best part.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and Toma for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of the second season is available now.