[This review concerns only the first arc of the story as I dropped it after that.]

Rengoku no Karma is a manga with a somewhat thought provoking premise that ends up being terribly bungled by an author that seems to lack the writing skill to tastefully approach the subject matter. The story is hamfisted, laughably over-the-top and, to top it off, extremely pretentious in the way it's told. It all culminates with a "fake deep" ending that not only left me feeling bad, but also made me wonder what the point of even telling the story was, other than to cash in on edgy imagery and appeal to fans of torture porn.

Sometimes, though, a bad story can be salvaged by good characters. Unfortunately for Rengoku no Karma, this is not the case as the characters were all as terribly written as the story, with each being almost comically overblown character tropes we've already seen in other manga.

There's also the inconsistent nature with how violence is portrayed. Injuries suffered by the victims are all handled with an air of realism while our main villain can somehow not only survive having his throat jammed into broken glass, but also apparently is so evil that this doesn't even phase him. Give me a f****ing break.

Maybe this premise could've been handled better by a more competent author, but unfortunately we'll never know. Save yourself the trouble and give Rengoku no Karma a pass.