A Descent into Dullness

Monster by Naoki Urasawa

Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a brilliant surgeon and a man with a bright future. Since moving from Japan to Germany he's on a fast-track for promotions at his hospital and he's engaged to the beautiful daughter of the hospital director. But then one night to children are brought in. A catatonic girl and her twin brother, who is comatose with a bullet in his head. At the same time the mayor is brought in with a blocked artery. Against the director's orders Tenma operates on the boy. Thanks to Tenma's elite skills the boy lives. But the mayor dies...

Now Tenma's career is stalled out and his fiance dumps him for the new protege of her father. Tenma uses this to rededicate himself to patient care and tries to be content with his current job standing. But soon the director and several others are murdered at the same time the twin children go missing. As Tenma searches for his missing patients he finds himself under suspicion from an Inspector Lunge of the BKA for the murders...

Living legend Naoki Urasawa here begins a truly epic story on the nature of evil...

Death: At Death's Door by Jill Thompson in consultation with Neil Gaiman

And once more we return to the shouju Vertigo stylings of Jill Thompson. Here Thompson does a re-perspective on the events of A Season of Mists. Thats the Sandman story-arc where Dream goes to Hell to spring free a girlfriend he'd condemned there ages ago and ends up being given the keys by Lucifer after the Morningstar closes the place down and kicks everyone out...

In At Death's Door Thompson occasionally stops by the regular story with Dream, but mostly she follows his siblings Death, Delerium and Despair as they wrangle the newly expelled ghosts of the Damned. Which includes Delerium and Despair trying to throw a party at Death's to cheer up some of the Damned...

Thompson's work is fun and makes for a wonderful contrast and companion to the original story. But, as always, part of the enjoyment will depend on one's tolerance for manga-style art. Especially the shouju (I think thats the correct term) or girly style that Thompson does so well...

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service:vol. 1 story by Eiji Otsuka, art by Housui Yamazaki, translation by Toshifumi Yoshida

So lets say your a fairly typical college student. Meaning broke. And near graduation but still completely clueless about what to do next. And say you have a "gift". In that corpses talk to you. And that you meet up with some other students who include a dowser, a pint-size embalmer, a computer hacker and someone who channels an alien thru a puppet. You'd probably form a business where you helped the restless dead find justice or peace or vengeance or whatever, trusting in karma to reward you for your good works. Right? Of course you would...

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service seems like an odd concept. But really its the manga version of a mystery-of-the-week supernatural television show. Like the non-conspiracy episodes of X-Files...

Yotsuba&! vol. 1 by Kiyohiko Azuma

I'm not normally a big manga reader. But there is something perfectly charming about this series. Its cute and funny and I found myself picking up all five volumes as well as picking them up for my nieces...

The series is about a strange green-haired girl named Yotsuba. She moves to a new town with her adoptive father. In the first volume she befriends her neighbors the Ayases. Especially the Ayase daughters, Fuku, Asagi and Ena. She also goes to the market. And goes cicada catching with Ena and her father's best friend Jumbo. Yotsuba zooms from one idea to another. Watching the simple joy everything brings her always brings a smile to my face...

Wondering what this is? If, like me, you don't read any Japanese let me explain what is behind this link. Manga versions of Eddings Belgariad/Malloream series. Which makes the burning pain behind my eyes come back...