Genre: manga/horror
List price: 10.95 USD
Lets start with the front cover. One thing I have really liked about Dark Horse's recent releases is their commitment to accuracy. The distinctive matte-shopping bag color of the Japanese original is maintained. It's this eye for detail that inspired confidence in the quality of the work inside.
The incredibly detailed and gross opening pages prepare the reader for the dark and sometimes disgusting images a manga with the word "corpse" in the title can be expected to have.
It is here we are introduced to Kuro who will act as the reader's eyes and ears (at least in this first volume). This chrome-domed college student has gotten hooked up with a volunteer group at his Buddhist college. Each of the five members of the group have a unique talent that leader, Ao, recognizes. With the group complete, Ao creates The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. One guy has a talent in finding dead bodies and Kuro can talk to the dead. We also have an expert embalmer, a computer hacker and...a puppet possessed by an alien.
Each chapter of Kurosagi is the discovery of a dumped body and an attempt to give it a peaceul final resting place. The real trick, the team discovers, is making a profit.
The stories are original and the artwork is superb. Yamazaki's stark detail comes across very clearly, giving the corpses an appropriately real tone.
What is improved in later volumes is the attempts at humor which sometimes fall flat here. As the characters become more established this seems to go away. It may also be that the rather dark material is hard to inject humor into. This Japanese-style genre-mixing can sometimes be jarring for non-Japanese readers.
This is the first of three series by Eiji Otsuka available now in English (Mail and MPD-Psycho are also published by Dark Horse, and all three come highy recommended.
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