chomiji | Entries tagged with kurosagi corpse delivery service

I actually thought I had blogged Yumi Unita's manga Bunny Drop, but it looks like I haven't (I can't find a review here, anyway). Basically, for the first four volumes it's a surprisingly deep "slice of life" manga about a bachelor, Daikichi, who adopts a four-year-old girl who is, in strict family tree terms, his aunt. Little Rin is serious, intent, and surprisingly independent, and the relationship between the two grows in a way that's heart-warming without being cutesy. rachelmanija wrote it up here.

The current volume marks the point at which this series, for me, basically jumps the shark. ==> Spoilers spoilers MAJOR spoilers: It time skips ahead to where Rin is 16 years old, and most of this volume was just the sort of high school teen manga that I avoid like the plague. In the last third, it went on track again for a bit with the heart-warming slice of life, but I understand - my husband's fault, he read ahead online - that in fact, Rin and Daikuchi are going to become an item in the future, and ewwwww! Anyway, if I continue further with this series, it will be merely from "OK, how do they get there?" curiosity and not from the affection that I felt for the first four volumes.

I was really happy to see Eiji Ōtsuka and Housui Yamazaki's Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service back in business. The volumes always come shrink wrapped and with Parental Advisory stickers, but usually all that is because of one or two grotesque scenes of nude corpses. This time, the protective measures are made to earn their keep thoroughly in the first story - and I realize that any more details would blow a reveal, so I'll stop right there. I like the second story, which is about a couple (male and female) of aspiring comedians, best: it managed to be spooky, grotesque, and sweet, a feat that Kurosagi pulls off every once in a while. The Asian-inspired doll collecting fad shows up in the final story. And in the notes at the end, volume 13 is mentioned, so yay! I was afraid that the hiatus had meant that the series was ending.

Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys has been getting more and more grim. This volume is a bit of a break, but I imagine it's just a false dawn before the ultimate crisis. Still, I'll take it: I enjoyed this one quite a bit. The mysterious guitar-playing wanderer "Yabuki Joe" (yes, I knew who he really is, as do most readers long before this point, I'm sure) and naif police office Chono try to cross a deadly checkpoint on their way into Tokyo. Yabuki Joe has a confrontation with a slimeball character that we haven't seen for many volumes, and it turns into a Moment of Awesome. All in all, a welcome breather from the ongoing disasters of the series.

Kuro Kuratsu is something of a slacker, a student in his last year of university who has no idea of what he wants to do, can't land a job, and can't seem to get too excited about any of it. However, he's also enrolled in a Buddhist university and is the descendant of priests and shamans. When he responds to a call for volunteers to say prayers over suicide victims in the Aokigahara Forest (also featured in SDK!), several of the other volunteers end up witnessing a special power that he tries not to think about either: he can speak to the spirits of the dead. It turns out that several of his fellow volunteers have odd abilities or skills too: gangster-type Numata can dowse for hidden dead bodies with a crystal on a string; mop-topped space cadet Yata claims to be channeling an alien intelligence through his glove puppet (either that, or he's a frighteningly perceptive ventriloquist); kewpie-doll lookalike Makino has trained as a U.S.-style mortician (unusual in Japan, where most dead are cremated); and self-appointed group leader Sasaki, in addition to being bossy and organized and having a nose for money, is a skilled internet researcher and something of a hacker. When Kuro discovers that the corpse they're about to help move has a special request, the five of them are launched into a grisly murder mystery. And when they get an unexpected payoff as a result, Sasaki uses it as seed money to start the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.

This is not a series for the squeamish. It features lots of dead bodies - not always intact - as well as heinous, often sexual crimes, and nudity - not always very good-looking nudity - is frequent. But it also has tons of deadpan humor, insight into current Japanese culture, and unexpected little grace notes, such as the rather rough-hewn but very compassionate priest who shows up in the second story. For the most part, like Mushishi, each "chapter" is a separate short story, although there are a few longer tales that take several chapters to conclude. The part of me that liked police procedurals when I read mysteries is really getting into this grimly playful manga. And the extensive notes at the end - not just sound effects, but also cultural and political notes - are a real plus.

( Read more ... with spoilers! )

Now that I think of it, this was a singularly appropriate manga to blog on All Souls Day ... !

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Dream with Our Eyes Open

I'm in my head again tonight

Entries tagged with kurosagi corpse delivery service

Quick Manga Takes: Bunny Drop 1-5; Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service 12; 20th Century Boys 19

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, vols. 1-3 (Eiji Otsuka and Housui Yamazaki)

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