My name’s Kuro Karatsu. A fourth-year student in an average Buddhist university. And there’s nothing so cold as winter break your senior year...when you count up all your average grades and average them out...to average. And you wonder how you’re going to pay for all your wasted time.
The story opens with Kuro Karatsu reluctantly taking part of a volunteer opportunity to search for and clean out bodies in a forest where people kill themselves. During this event he meets a group of people who will soon be future business partners as well as a dead body. The reader finds out that Kuro has an ability to let the dead speak it him, and this dead body has a request to be buried with the girlfriend whom he killed himself with. And it unfolds into one creepy story.
Following that, the group then decides to start a business of delivering dead bodies, and helping the souls inside fulfill any last requests(as well as hoping to drain the dead ones saving accounts if possible). The story is in an episodic format from job to job, however there are hints that there might be an actual storyline by the end of the second volume. It is difficult to tell.
While not the most steady basis for a story, it turns into some amazingly done and fairly creepy short stories. It’s a rough start, the first couple stories are not that special, and it has a hard time getting the point across. Things get smoother as time goes on, and it produces some truly engaging stories about the afterlife, and one of the best things I’ve picked up in a while.
The main characters, besides Kuro, include a bossy hacker, a cute embalmer, a dowser who can’t find a drop of water but can pinpoint a body, and a shy man that channels a talking alien through a puppet. The alien is stretching things, and one is left with the feeling that the alien doesn’t fit, although every other creepy thing in the story does. The characters themselves, while simple, have a very realistic feel to them.
The art is dead serious, and close to realistic, but a bit blocky at times. Although the artist knows how to draw a lady, no question about that. The writing is well-done, with a thought provoking matter.
At the end of it all, it leaves the question. What do you do with a dead body?
A note to keep in mind that this graphic novel has some nudity/bloodshed, and overall the stories are too mature for the littlings...
...like myself admittly. Hush.
4/5
I don't usually say things like this but _please_ do read this. I'm pretty sure this is an unknown series, but it is well worth your time and it is just damn cool.
...not to mention a sexy shower scene in the 2nd one...
"I'll be dressed in mourning too."
Thanks but I don't dig incest.
What makes you thik I want you when I have the hacker babe?
I don't love you that much!
On the other hand, looking at our avaters is giving me images of what would happen if Wufei met Fransizka. It's hailrous.
You need to check you spelling. ^^;
Yeah, I'm sure they'd get along great...