Genre: Comedy / Horror
Age: Adults Only
Price: 9.95 USD
 
One of my most anticipated titles of 2008 is finally creeping onto shelves. I happy to report that Tokyo
Zombie is as hilarious as it is gory. I expect there will be two schools of thought on Tokyo Zombie, and it
may be the love-it-or-hate-it manga of the year.
 
The first reason is the art. Similar in unconventionality as last year's Tekkon Kinkreet by Taiyo Matsumoto, author Yusaku Hanakuma's style looks more like hieroglyphics. These are very basic black-and-white penned drawing with almost no shading. The drawing style is simple, but not imprecise. Just as the scariest horror movies are usually low-budget affairs, Hanakuma's crude style is surprisingly effective in delivering the gross-out goods. The style is more reminiscent of four-panel comics (which Hamakuma also continues writing now with the two main characters), so the dark humor comes through in stark clarity.
 
But what is Tokyo Zombie about? Saying too much would ruin the fun, but in an overly-obvious dig at society's selfishness, an alternatively-coiffed factory worker duo, Mituo and Fujio, find themselves on Dark Fuji, a mountain of garbage and dumped corpses. Dark Fuji has become the birthground of a zombie invasion, and its starts early in the story escalates at a dizzying pace. Once of the first victims of the zombies is an evil gym teacher that is burying another one of his wimpy students. His demise is sadistic and gratifying, but also more graphic than anything in Gantz or other manga getting attention for their maturity.
 
What unfurls is a surprising tale with several very surprising twists. The focus is less on the how and why of the zombies and more on how the people of Japan react. The humans are just as ugly as the zombies, and that comes out in some brutal and brutally funny scenes as the rich struggle (often successfully) with staying rich and entertained in a zombie-ravaged world.
 
A review of Tokyo Zombie is not complete without mention of the translation by Ryan Sands. Adult humor and profanity can be tricky when translating from Japanese to English. Simply put, Japanese don't swear in the same way we do in English, so capturing that tone requires a careful balance and some brass balls. I don't know if I would have been as bold in my translation of Tokyo Zombie, but Sands's results fit perfectly with the tone of the art and the story.
 
At just over 150 pages, Tokyo Zombie is a concise and satisfyingly different type of tale which will help push the boundaries of what we call a manga. The day after I read Tokyo Zombie I looked at my books to read and picked up T.Z. and read it again. I can't give a better endorsement than that.
 

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