Manga Monday/Graphic Is Great: Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service

Ah, summer reading programs.  Love them or hate them, anticipate them or fear them, if you're in the business of public library science, they are unavoidable.  Personally, I embrace them, as they get people reading, enhance statistics, and are good publicity.  At the little library where I'm director, the summer reading program has been going great, with more than 100 children signed up to read and earn prizes.  There are smaller programs for high school students and adults, too, with the potential to win prizes from drawings at the end of the program.

My hometown library also has a robust summer reading program for adults, and since I don't work there, I can participate.  Every checkout of books or audiobooks gets me an entry slip that I can fill out and put into a prize box of my choice.

And the easiest way to get in a lot of entry forms is reading manga.  Which brings us to this review.

Statistics
Checkouts: N/A
Number of volumes available: 13 in English, 17 in Japanese (ongoing)
Typical reader: Adults who like dark, edgy manga
Source: My local library

Summary: Five students at a Buddhist university are united by unique skills - some mundane, some supernatural - involving the dead.  They form a business of getting corpses to wherever they need to go to free the souls.  Sometimes they profit from this.

My Goodreads rating: 4 to 5 stars

As I tend to review books for the school library setting, let me say this right off the bat: This series is not for children, or even most teens.  It is a very adult horror series, with graphically portrayed dead bodies, full frontal nudity (mostly on corpses), violence, and occasional sex.  The last couple of volumes available have "PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT CONTENT" stickers on the covers.  Get over the American idea that comic books are for children.

That said, if you're into dark horror with macabre humor and plenty of social commentary, that keeps things fresh and interesting, this is a great series.  Thirteen volumes are available in English, with more to be translated, and the series is ongoing in its home country.  I was a bit sad to finish volume 13, and hope that the fourteenth will soon be ready stateside.

Most volumes are filled with vignettes of cases that the team takes, which are often one to three chapters long.  (Volume two is a single story arc.)  The stories are influenced by a variety of sources, from traditional lore to urban legends, and from cultural quirks to ripped-from-headline sagas.  The manner of storytelling, and the fact that many jobs do not actually lead to money, makes this series a bit reminiscent of the classic anime, Cowboy Bebop.

Don't miss the glossary and notes at the end of each volume!  I had initially just skimmed the one in the first volume, until I got to one peculiar note.  "196.1 FX: PAKIII - sound of a bolt falling through glasses at terminal velocity into eye socket." (Volume 1, page 215)  Whoa, that's pretty specific.  So I read the rest of the notes.  They're worthwhile, for the humorous specificity as in the above quote, and also the interesting trivia they impart about aspects of Japanese culture, history, locations, and lore that I had previously known nothing of.  You can really learn a lot from the notes.

Which brings me to a last aspect I want to bring up.  While it's not to the level of Gantz for dark social commentary, Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service definitely is -not- afraid to touch on taboo subjects.  Not only does the team go searching for suicide victims in Aokigahara Forest, they also deal with the Iraq War, the remnants of the biological weapons research the Japanese committed in Occupied China during World War II, the Japanese justice system, illegal immigration, athlete doping, infanticide, and more.

In sum, if you like dark humor, social commentary, and vengeful reanimated corpses, check out this series.

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Manga Mondays is a meme used by many book review blogs, and is sort of hosted by Alison Can Read.

The Hunger Games v. Battle Royale

I read the manga Battle Royale last summer, and now that I've read the first novel in the hit trilogy The Hunger Games, I can't resist making a bit of a compare-and-contrast review.

Synopsis for both: A cruel government keeps its citizens in check by having a yearly "game" pitting dozens of teens against each other in a battle to the death.  This brutal game is shown on live TV.  There can be only one victor.

Statistics Checkouts: 10 Series checkouts (trilogy): 22 Typical reader: This ranges from older elementary boys, to high school girls, to classroom aides. There is no typical reader. Source: Follett for the school, gift for my copy	Statistics Checkouts: Rated M, this does not belong in a school library. Series checkouts (15 manga): Seriously. This puts "graphic" in graphic novels. Typical reader: Fans of Japanese gore fests Source: Local public library
My Goodreads rating: 5 stars	My Goodreads rating: N/A

While reading Battle Royale, I realized that what I'd heard about The Hunger Games sounded a lot like this manga.  That's absolutely true, at least on the surface.  The plot, as shown in the synopsis above, is interchangeable.  What's different, besides the medium used to tell the story and the language/country of origin?


The main characters: Katniss of The Hunger Games is one of those YA heroines that I can really get behind.  She's a survivor, strong and tough.  When her little sister's name is drawn to participate in the Hunger Games, she refuses to let that happen and volunteers in her stead.  She is a skilled huntress and keeps her wits about her throughout the ordeal.  And she remains true to herself!  I don't want to give anything away, but I was proud of how she handled things at the end of the book.

Shuuya of Battle Royale is a student in an ill-fated class that's drugged on a field trip and sent to a deserted island for this story's battle to the death.  He is a musician - which is rebellious in this dystopian Japan - and quite nonviolent; he would prefer to avoid killing his classmates at all costs.  Joined by a female classmate, Noriko, whose wound he dresses after she is shot before the game even begins, Shuuya tries to recruit and save other classmates in an alliance.  Only the transfer student, Shogo, joins them for long.

Perspective and style: The Hunger Games is a novel written in limited third-person, focusing on Katniss.  Most of the deaths occur "off-screen," except for the battle near the end of the Games.  Battle Royale covers every one of the 42 students in the game, including offering back-stories on several of the contestants.  It is one of the most graphic, explicit sequential art pieces I've ever seen.  Most of that is violence, but there's also some nudity and sexual situations.

This is one of the less gory death scenes.

Outside aid and restrictions: The students in Battle Royale each start with a backpack of supplies and one random weapon.  They are equipped with collars that track their movements and transmit their vital statistics to those who run the show.  If no one dies in a 24-hour period, someone's tracking collar will detonate; this will also happen if a student strays into an area announced as being off-limits.

The competitors in The Hunger Games have it easier by far - if they survive the initial rush for supplies, and the bloodbath that ensues.  Katniss grabbed a bag and ran, narrowly escaping death.  After that, those who impressed the audiences in the Capital may be sent gifts via their sponsors.  These can really come in handy.

Movies: Battle Royale was made into a movie before it became a manga; both are based on a novel of the same name.  The movie was released in Japan in 2000.  The Hunger Games movie will be in theaters next month.

Sequels: The Hunger Games is part of a trilogy; I look forward to reading the next two books.  Battle Royale has a sequel manga series, Blitz Royale.  I've seen some art from it, and it's not as good or realistic.

Who I would give the book to: As I said in the statistics, there are older elementary students who read The Hunger Games.  That's pretty acceptable.  Battle Royale, on the other hand, fits well into my "Guilty Pleasures" category and would best go to mature adults who like manga filled with violence and social commentary, and Quentin Tarantino's films.