The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 9

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

Not being a big manga reader, and not knowing a whole lot about Japan, I think this series has really coloured my perception of that whole country, and its culture.  In this ninth volume of the brilliant series The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, the writer Eiji Otsuka shines the spotlight on one of the stranger aspects of Otaku culture, the stranger air-defence techniques used in the Second World War, and the theme of suicide in Japanese culture.  Along the way, as always, he makes the book a great deal of fun to read, and completely unpredictable.

The first story in this volume deals with "solo hide-and-seek", a game that somehow involves imbuing a doll or stuffed animal with the spirit of a dead person, so that it will come find you when you hide it.  This game is being played on a beautiful young television personality, with bizarre results.

The second story involves urban myths of headless motorcycle riders and an invisibility suit.  The third involves an old man who could hear the voice of heaven, who as a young man was made to sit in a shallow bunker listening for American bombers.  Apparently this really happened.  The final story is the quietest and most personal, as the two most over-looked members of the Service's staff, Yata and Keiko, bond a little over stories about their childhood, and how their parents died.

This series really is remarkable.  It is grounded in a pretty absurd idea for a serial - that the people of the Service help deliver unclaimed and unidentified corpses to their final resting place - yet it is surprisingly personable and affecting.  The ideas that go into this series are always bizarre, but there is a comforting sitcom-like quality to the book that makes you want to overlook any amount of implausibility.  I can't recommend this series highly enough. 

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 8

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

Eight volumes in, it's hard to describe how much I love The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service in a new way, but my affection for this book remains undiminished.

In this issue, the crew, who usually busy themselves delivering deceased bodies to where they want to go, address a couple of social issues in modern-day Japan.  The first story is a pretty simple one about the group trying to recruit new members so they can maintain their status as a school club.

After that, though, they become embroiled in a story about 'afterlife weddings' - marriages conducted between two people who are deceased, as a way of placating their souls.  Things turn a little weird though, when a company that offers this service start marrying the dead to the living, with the end result being that both bride and groom end up dead.

The next story has to do with the practice of 'baby drop boxes' at Japanese hospitals - a way for women to safely deposit unwanted newborns without facing criminal charges or public shame.  Of course, this being Kurosagi CDS, the babies keep turning up dead, and there is a supernatural explanation.

This series always blends humour and horror perfectly, and I find that I like the characters more with each new volume I read.  There's not a lot of individual development in this volume, aside from the introduction of a possible love interest for Karatsu, but this is still a very enjoyable read.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 7

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

I never get bored of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, the manga series that follows the adventures of a group of young university graduates who use their various skills (corpse dowsing, channeling, mortuary make-up) to locate corpses and take them to where they wish to be.  It sounds like the type of concept that would get old, but seven volumes in, I find that the series still feels fresh and exciting.

This volume tells three stories across its six chapters, which all deal with themes of obsession.  The first story involves the Japanese love of robots, as a group of university students try to build a mechanized suit, and then a robot, to help with heavy lifting.  The Kurosagi crew, broke again, agree to test the equipment when they take on a job delivering heavy tombstones.  It's not long before corpses are involved.  Japanese otaku culture is major component of this story, and that leads to endnotes by editor Carl Gustav Horn that would make David Foster Wallace jealous.  I learned a lot from this story.

The second tale involves the Japanese fixation on Audrey Hepburn (although the famous actress here is given a different name), and their predilection for cosmetic surgery.  A clinic is offering revolutionary surgery that gives its customers pointy ears like their idol.  The problem is that these ears often sport a jinmenso, or ghostly face of their own.  As the Kurosagi group get involved in this case, they discover that their sinister counterparts, the Shirosagi, are also involved, and have a plot to capture Karatsu.

The final story involves the ambitions of a long-time assistant to a famous Japanese director, who decides that he needs to take some drastic steps to move out of his boss's shadow.

All of these stories deftly blend humour with horror, and all feature strong characterization.  I find that I am always surprised by just how much I enjoy this book.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 6

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

I think this is the strangest volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service that I've read so far.  A usual volume has four to six chapters, which are usually self-contained stories, but occasionally a story will take up two or three chapters.  This volume has six chapters, and tells a total of three stories, one of which doesn't feature any of the regular characters in this comic.

The first story has the group, which carries out the last wishes of the recently deceased, and takes their corpses where they want to go, return to their roots, in Japan's famous Aokigahara Forest, where many people go to commit suicide.  The problem is, there aren't many corpses to be found, as the local postal office has begun branching out into the Kurosagi's territory, by offering their own corpse delivery service.

In the next story, a woman's body is discovered in an apartment.  When the Kurosagi group show up to offer their services, they discover that a new rival, the Shirosagi Corpse Cleaning Service has beaten them to the scene.  There's something odd about these Shirosagi people though, as we learn when another body is found in the attic to the apartment (found only after Numata, the KCDS's dowser, moves into the apartment for its cheap rent).  This leads to a long story which is not fully resolved in this volume, a first for this series.

After that, there are two chapters of a gaiden story.  This is translated as a 'side story', something peculiar to Japanese comics.  This one is set in the past, around the beginning of the 20th century, and involves a killer murdering women in Tokyo.  It is especially notable for two reasons - it brings the Jack the Ripper myth to Japan, and it features a young boy with some strange abilities who has facial scars matching those of the ghost that is always protecting Karatsu.  It's a good story, but it only makes me more curious to find out what the connection between this child and Karatsu is.

This book is always a good read, and that has not changed with this volume.  I love the way that Otsuka blends humour into his horror, and continue to appreciate the editor's notes in the back, which cover most of the cultural references that don't otherwise translate into English.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 5

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

I can't express enough how much I enjoy The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  This manga series is pretty bizarre in its subject matter and characters, but I find it an effortless read (thanks in no small part to the helpful and informative notes by the editor, Carl Gustav Horn).

The KCDS is a group of underemployed Buddhist Studies graduates who have either an interest in, or abilities pertaining to, the dead.  They seek out corpses, and then communicate with them to help them achieve their final wish.  They hope that there will be some sort of profit in this, although there usually isn't.

This volume has four stand-alone stories.  The first has to do with a small village that was left abandoned after a killer murdered all of its inhabitants.  The second story has to do with a professor of Egyptology who has been manufacturing mummies as a way of paying off his debts.  The third has the crew working as professional mourners at funerals, and stumbling upon a mystery.  The final story addresses the shadier sides of the cryogenics industry in Japan.

All of these stories work as examples of Otsuka's ability to blend creepy horror with a sharp sense of humour and a lighthearted approach to writing.  It's a difficult balance to maintain, but he does it well.  He also does a great job of showing the growth of the characters, and deepens the mystery of just where Karatsu's abilities come from, and who the figure we see appearing around him at times really is.

This series is highly recommended.

Kurosagi Corpse Deliver Service Vol. 4

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

Once again, I'm surprised by how much I enjoy the The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  With each new volume I read, I'm more convinced that the creators have stumbled on a winning formula - the horror sitcom comic.

KCDS is about a group of Buddhist graduates who have formed a business designed to help the dead complete their final wishes, which usually involve having their corpse returned home for them.  While it's not a winning business formula (I'm not sure if they've ever received more than one payment from their clients), it works very well as a structure for stories.  Among the employees of the service are a medium who channels a distant alien consciousness into a sock puppet, a guy who can speak with the dead, and another who has the ability to dowse the location of corpses.

This issue has four stories in it.  The first involves the discovery of an 'alien' body.  The second involves a conspiracy centred around a Bodyworlds-like exhibit, where some evil scientists are 'plastinating' the bodies of the dead.  The third story features the haunting of a baby-killer (and features a guest appearance by a character from one of Otsuka's other manga series), while the fourth is a weird story about parasitic slugs and a traveling American student.

All of these stories are deeply weird at their core, but are played lightly.  Otsuka's characterizations are strong, and very consistent.  One would think that there are only so many ways to tell stories that involve wronged corpses, but with each additional volume I pick up (so far there are twelve available in English), I'm surprised by how fresh the concept feels.  This is good stuff.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 3

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

As impressed as I've been with Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, I think that Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is my favourite manga.  It doesn't really have any literary pretensions, but the sheer weirdness and inventiveness of this comic, coupled with its strong sense of character, has me coming back again and again.

The entire concept of the KCDS is that the five employees of the Service (six if you count the space alien that is channeled through a hand puppet) track down unclaimed and lost dead bodies, and work to fulfill the spirit trapped in the body's last wishes.  They do expect that at some point this business will begin to make money, but that hasn't happened yet.

In this volume, which has four chapters, there are three separate stories.  The first, and longest, involves transplant failure, and the wishes of necrotic donor organs.  Soon, the group discovers that many recent deaths are caused by acute rejection of organs that all came from the same donor, who was in turn an illegal immigrant from Iraq.  This story is set against the rather tepid anti-war protests that Japan was barely able to muster during the beginning of America's war in that country.  It contains some interesting insights into Japanese culture, and is also an interesting story.

The second story involves bodies that are being discovered in homes that have Onis, or demons, painted outside of them.  This leads to a rather complicated tale involving the Japanese salesman's version of hobo graffiti.  It's a strange story that doesn't hold up to its own internal logic, but it gets points for originality.

The final story is about a rash of train track suicides that seem to have a strange genesis.  The suicides don't plan to kill themselves, but are being influenced by an outside source that again shows that Otsuka is approaching his stories from a direction that is not often used.

This volume introduces a new recurring character to the series - Sasayama, a social worker that is apparently an ex-cop, although the main characters all believe he is yakuza.  This is a series that is always interesting, and works very well.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 2

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

The second volume of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is quite different from the first.  Where the first one introduced the characters and the concept of a group of Buddhist students who have opened a business to help lost and unclaimed corpses find peace over the course of a number of short stories, this book contains a book-length story.

Basically, the group has been having a hard time finding paying clients for their service, which makes sense since to be their client, one must be dead.  They advertise on the internet, and quickly become embroiled in a plot by a rival organization, called Nire Ceremony.  What they do is revive the corpses of murderers, and then let the families of their victims have at them with knives. 

Ao, the boss of the Kurosagi Service is contacted by her sister when they learn that the man who murdered their parents and sister has been executed.  Through strange circumstances, the KCDS has the man's corpse, but they deliver it to Nire Ceremony.  Later, they discover that Ao's sister's fiance has some secrets of his own that are connected to everything that is going on.

What follows is a pretty densely plotted horror story, which hinges on some pretty unbelievable coincidences and some very strange concepts, but is overall a very compelling and readable story.  Otsuka is doing a good job developing these characters, and I appreciated the longer story in this volume.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Vol. 1

Written by Eiji Otsuka
Art by Housui Yamazaki

I've been a little more curious about manga of late, and was attracted to this series by the title alone quite some time ago.  When I saw it at a significant discount during an on-line Black Friday sale, I figured it was the perfect time to give it a try, expecting something very strange.

Well, there can't be much stranger than The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  The series follows the adventures of a small group of Buddhism students who decide to pool their special talents to help relocate corpses they discover to wherever they want to go.  One of the group members, Kuro, is able to speak to the dead, and he serves as the Service's medium, taking orders if you will.  Another member, Numata, has dowsing abilities that lead him to undiscovered corpses.  Also among the group are Yata, who can channel an alien consciousness through a puppet he keeps on his hand, Makino, one of the few American-trained embalmers in Japan, and Ao, who serves as the group's boss.

In this first volume, there are four different stories that all involve the Service finding a corpse, and then going through some sort of adventure to take it where it wants to go.  The story begins in Aokigahara Forest (also the setting for the IDW graphic novel The Suicide Forest which I've been meaning to buy).  Aokigahara is a famous place in Japan for suicides, and when the group, who are there to perform Buddhist community service (praying over the bodies), they stumble upon the knowledge that the man they find wishes to be reunited with his equally dead lover.

All of these adventures involve people dying in strange ways, and they are all pretty Japanese (except for the serial killer-centred third chapter, which could be an episode of Dexter).  The second chapter involves the concept of Dendera Field, the place where Japanese communities used to abandon their old in a form of euthanasia.  Were it not for some of the explanatory notes in the back of this book, I wouldn't have been able to follow that one at all.

I found this book to be pretty enjoyable.  It was a quick read, but it provided me with some further insight into Japanese culture, and it was pretty amusing.  I'm not sure how many volumes there are in this series, but after I finish the next two on my pile, I'll be hunting down more for sure.