Well, that sure was a lot of things exploding. Sometimes it even had a reason. But “reason” and “plot” take a second place here to “all hell breaking loose.” Lee Heartrib is an orphan. Saved on the street by the alchemist head of the Antilia Family mafia, Lee is irresponsible, lazy and dedicated to the goal of bring order to his town, an objective at which he is not good at all. Instead, with overwhelming power, Lee and his team are able to destroy threats, but the cleanup and rebuilding work always seems to be left undone.

Lee is assisted by a severe glasses wearing man, Lewis, a young girl named Missy, a loli-bait character whose growl usually presages a destructive force, and strongman and sniper, Bison Kojima. These four, and their town, are targeted by junkies looking for an drug known as The Ashes of Hermes, which gives the user immortality, or the appearance of immortality, or maybe just a temporary immortality. It is a bit vague what the drug actually does, but they definitely want it. So when rogue alchemist junkies attack Lee's Home and town and annoy the absolute piss out of his team, they end up beating the crap out of the junkies and destroying a bit more of the part of town they are protecting.

The alchemy is…interesting, rather than good. Individual concepts from alchemy are used, twisted into super power-like skills, or formulas that achieve specific ends. Almost immediately the idea of turning base metals into gold are poo-pooed. No one here is wealthy, just powerful and power can be turned into wealth. We never see anyone just living in this supposed 19th century town. There are no carts in the streets, people buying and selling, no stores. It's a weirdly sketchy kind of town, more like a set than a place for humans.

Here in volume one, we are merely getting the gaming board out and setting up the pieces; there is little cohesion to the story as of yet. Lee takes care of junkies on an outlying island, that is to say blowing them up while Bison and Missy kill them, bitching about it the entire time, and getting yelled at for doing it at all. The volume begins with a battle with an impossibly powerful junkie who wants the Ashes, the next chapter, the team heads out to kill more junkies who want Ashes. The Families convene a meeting about the Ashes. Every other scene is Lee, Missy, Bison killing the shit out of something. The Ashes of Hermes ae discussed at high levels and low, a council is called of all the Families. A ton of people get themselves blown up.

Why blown up, you might ask? Because, you see, “fulminating silver” is explosive. Alchemy in this world does not exact a price as it does in say, Fullmetal Alchemist. It is skill, innate or learned, about which we know little, except that Lee is a genius at it. His own history, beyond being dragged out of the gutter by the man who handed him the head of the family position upon his own death is all the backstory we get. No training, no mentoring, not so much as awakening. And this is really the biggest problem with this story. We are told so little about….anything…that there isn't much to say about any of it. This manga is the very essence of “move fast and break things.”

The art here is really interesting. Panels are grand and sweeping, full of motion and action, all of it really hard to “see.” We don't know (anything!) the extent of anyone's powers or abilities, so even when they do something it's not always identifiable. There was a scene early on where someone's head jerks back, blood spurting, like he has been shot, and he grins and pulls a knife out of his forehead in the next panel. I stared hard at the previous panel to see if I could see the knife and I guess, maybe? It was hard to make out. Also…no. But since suspension of belief is a critical tool in reading Hool!gans, that's not a problem.

There is a lovely panel after Lee has exploded the shit out someone where the lingering smoke leaves an impression of a skeleton. You can just about make out the skull and spine and hips, in the smoke. This a pretty good analogy for this story—its very much form over function. The form is fun, and the function…eh, who cares really?

I've spent a lot of time so far touch on specific weaknesses, but this is actually a pretty fun and violence-action filled story if you are not in particular need of plot or character development. It comes out of the gate hard and keeps going just as hard right through the final pages. In which the mafia families, including a group whose aesthetics is a funky yakuza/samurai mix from “the east”, as well as our supposedly 19th century Europeans with their very not-Victorian clothing or deportment, all immediately pull guns and start to fight. So, tune in next volume to see if anything of importance is said in between people dying. It could happen.