The Crimson Labyrinth

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From a rising new star of horror comes a killer read that will make you lose track of time and reality. The Crimson Labyrinth is a wicked satire on extremist reality TV in the tradition of The Running Man-if that indeed is what it is. Welcome to THE MARS LABYRINTH where things aren't what they seem. Welcome to the world of Kishi, where the plot is as gnarly as the humor is twisted.

When an unemployed former math major wakes up one day, he wonders if he's somehow ended up on the red planet. The good-looking young woman with aid-she says her name is Ai and that she draws erotic comics for a living-seems to have no clue either as to their whereabouts. Their only leads are cryptic instructions beamed to a portable device. Has the game begun?

There is no reset button, no saving and no continue-make the wrong move and it's really GAME OVER. In the cruel world of THE MARS LABYRINTH, mercy and compassion are only for the weak or the very, very strong. The stakes are nothing less than your life-and apparently a lot of money.

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Coffin: The Art of Vampire Hunter D

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For over twenty years, the character Vampire Hunter D has haunted the imaginations of people around the world, its image forever etched in the mind's eye through the dazzling artwork of Yoshitaka Amano. As the original novels appear in English for the first time, American readers are clamoring for a more extensive look at this singular creation. Coffin obliges. This gorgeous retrospective embraces the full scope of Amano's work with the character: in the novels, as inspiration for the animators of the two theatrical films, rare paintings, and illustrations created for release as limited edition prints.

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Twinkle Twinkle

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Appearances are deceptive. Mutsuki and Shoko appear to everyone, including their overbearing parents, to be just a typical Tokyo husband and wife. But each has a deep, dark secret, and their marriage of convenience only appears to be the solution each one needs. Mutsuki is strictly gay and has a boyfriend. Shoko is a clinical case of emotional instability and drinks too much. At first this mismatched pair provides support for each other, but soon they only seem to bring each other down. In Twinkle Twinkle a modern marriage unravels, and it takes modern thinking to piece it back together.

One of Twinkle Twinkle's unique charms is its delicate structure. From chapter to chapter, the point of view alternates between that of husband and wife, and each acquires tricky layers as the story unfolds. Published in Japan in 1991, Twinkle Twinkle established Ekuni at the forefront of young women writers. It sold 500,000 copies, won the Lady Murasaki Literary Award, and was made into a film. Twinkle Twinkle is Ekuni's first work to appear in English.

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In the Pool

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A high school student can't be more than a few minutes away from his cell phone; a model thinks every man on the street is a stalker; an overbearing magazine editor relieves his mid-life crisis by long-distance swimming... These are some of the patients who descend to the basement consulting room of Doctor Ichiro Irabu, an obese, eccentric neurologist with an injection fetish, an Oedipus complex, and a pea-green Porsche. This collection of stories has been adapted for TV and the movies in Japan.

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Outlet

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Where would a shaman fit into modern society? Are trance states to be dismissed simply as fits of madness? Is the buffoonery of psychic hotlines all that the modern world has left of spiritual intuition? Randy Taguchi's upbeat riff on modern spirituality, her first novel, is a psychological detective story that seeks to answer these questions.

A bracingly secular exploration of heightened awareness, Taguchi's English-language debut is a page-turner that weds New Age spirituality with the classic mystery form.

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Old Boy Volume 1

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Ten years ago, they took him. He doesn't know who. For ten years he has been confined in a private prison. He doesn't know why. For ten years his only contact with the outside world has been a television set and the voice of his jailers. In time, he lost himself... changed... transformed himself into something else... something hard... something lethal. Suddenly one day, his incarceration ends, again without explanation. He is sedated, stuffed inside a trunk, and dumped in a park. When he awakes, he is free to reclaim what's left of his life... and what's left is revenge.

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Lullabies from Hell

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Welcome to one of the most disturbing minds of Japanese manga! Hideshi Hino has long been considered a master of the horror manga genre since his coming out in the late '70s. And the four stories in Lullabies From Hell will show you how demented the man can be. The self-titled first tome introduces you to the author himself, a horror quasi-biography of sorts. The second story tells of Hinofs having willed his pregnant wife into birthing a horrible, planet-devastating reptile baby! And you can imagine how the stories progress from there. Take a look inside the mind of a madman! Published in the popular unretouched and unflopped manga format, Lullabies from Hell might make sleeping a bit of a challenge!

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Scary Book Volume 1: Reflections

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The spine-chilling influence of Japanese horror films has taken hold in Western audiences with hit films like The Ring and based on Japanese films themselves based on classic manga stories. And the master of horror manga is Umezu Kazuo - known as the "Stephen King of Japan," with several of his stories being adapted to film - and Dark Horse Manga is proud to bring his Scary Book horror anthology to Western readers for the first time. This first volume, Shadows, features two feature-length tales, "The Mirror" and "Vengeance Demon." Find out what Japanese readers have known for many years: you haven't been scared until you've been scared by Umezu Kazuo!

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Scary Book Volume 2: Insects

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Kazuo Umezu, "the Stephen King of manga," returns with the second frightening volume of his Scary Book anthology series. In "Butterfly Grave," a book-length feature story, ever since the mysterious and untimely death of her mother when she was still an infant, Megumi has had an inexplicable, devastating phobia of butterflies. Upon visiting her mother's grave years after her death, Megumi begins being haunted by a black butterfly that only she can see and which seemingly causes waves of destruction and misery to Megumi's family and friends wherever it appears. But when Megumi's father decides to remarry, Megumi begins to fear that her new mother is turning into the very thing she dreads most.

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Scary Book Volume 3: Faces

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Kazuo Umezu, the grandmaster of horror manga, returns with the third chilling volume of his Scary Book anthology series. In "Fear," Aiko is always ignored and neglected when compared to her beautiful older sister, Momoko. But when Momoko is horribly disfigured in an accident and goes mad, it's up to Aiko to bring home young girls her sister can use . . . to make a new face! And in "The Coincidental Letter," a young girl named Yoko, in a fit of mischief, sends an insulting letter to a made-up girl at a made-up address warning her of a horrible fate. However, by incredible coincidence, both the girl and the address are real, and everything in the letter starts coming true!

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Samurai Executioner Volume 1: When the Demon Knife Weeps

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From the creators of Lone Wolf and Cub comes Samurai Executioner. It's true! Few know of this precursor to the legendary ronin saga, but before Koike and Kojima created Itto Ogami, they created Kubikiri Asa, better known to Lone Wolf readers as Decapitator Asaemon. He was the equal to Itto, bearer of the sword Onibocho, the man charged with the duty of testing the swords for the shogun. Shogun Executioner is based on the decapitator himself, in life before his fatal duel with Lone Wolf. Expect the same legendary drama, frantic action, and stoic samurai stature, combined with the exemplary art and storytelling that made Lone Wolf and Cub one of the most popular and influential comic books in the world!

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Samurai Executioner Volume 2: Two Bodies, Two Minds

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It's the same classic style you came to expect from Koike and Kojima. The same tale of an honorable samurai and a similar great sword in the hand of a similarly fantastic swordsman, but make no mistake, Samurai Executioner is very different from its brother, Lone Wolf & Cub, sometimes frighteningly so.

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Samurai Executioner Volume 3: The Hell Stick

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Readers of Lone Wolf & Cub came to know a samurai of such high honor that he was not only able to perform but enjoyed and, in fact, learned from basic daily tasks. Cutting wood, cooking food. That wasn't something a samurai did back in feudal Japan. These same human elements are apparent in Kubikiri Asa, the main character in Samurai Executioner. He's a man of the people, though his job is to separate many of those same people from their heads.

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Samurai Executioner Volume 4: Portrait of Death

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A frenetic mix of samurai honor, base violence, and the blood of beheading, Samurai Executioner, is not for the faint of heart. For those who love blood and guts crime drama, historical fiction, and brutal action, this is right up your alley. The men who brought you Lone Wolf & Cub also created Kubikiri Asa, a young ronin samurai who helps keep the peace by putting the fear of beheading into Edo's criminals. But it doesn't always work, and so he has to. Full of squirting blood, fast-paced samurai swordwork, and the drama that comes from human corruption, Samurai Executioner is like no other classic manga.

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Coin Locker Babies

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This is a surreal coming-of-age tale that establishes Ryu Murakami as one of the most inventive young writers in the world today.

Abandoned at birth in adjacent train station lockers, two troubled boys spend their youth in an orphanage and with foster parents on a semi-deserted island before finally setting off for the city to find and destroy the women who first rejected them. Both are drawn to an area of freaks and hustlers called Toxitown. One becomes a bisexual rock singer, star of this exotic demimonde, while the other, a pole-vaulter, seeks his revenge in the company of his girlfriend, Anemone, a model who has converted her condominium into a tropical swamp for her pet crocodile.

Together and apart, their journey from a hot metal box to a stunning, savage climax is a brutal funhouse ride through the eerie landscape of late-twentieth-century Japan.

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Lady Snowblood Vol. 1

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From the pen of Kazuo Koike, of Lone Wolf and Cub fame, comes Lady Snowblood. A story of pure vengeance, Lady Snowblood tells the tale of a daughter born of a singular purpose, to avenge the death of her family at the hands of a gang of thugs, a purpose woven into her soul from the time of her gestation. Beautifully drafted and full of bloody, sexy action, Lady Snowblood lives up to its title and reputation.

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Lady Snowblood Vol. 2

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The path of revenge can have many twisted turns, and Lady Snowblood's is no exception. Born in a prison, a product of her mother's grudge, Yuki is a child of hell. What will she do for revenge? Pose as a nun? Become another woman's lover? Possibly.

In this volume we learn about Yuki's training and youth, see her woo some allies, and embark on the first steps of her angry path.

Written by Kazuo Koike of Lone Wolf & Cub fame, Lady Snowblood is a tale of a woman's path in hell.

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Lady Snowblood Vol. 3

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Lady Snowblood is a woman born with a singular purpose, revenge. Revenge for the death of her father at the hands of greedy criminals. Revenge for the life of her mother, who birthed her in a prison to continue this demon's path of death. Sometimes this path is odd, sometimes sexy, often painful, and always violent. By means of a world's worth of skills, Lady Snowblood will find her revenge. But who knows what lies at the end of this path.

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Lone Wolf and Cub Vol 1: The Assassin's Road

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Dark Horse Comics is proud to present one of the authentic landmarks in graphic fiction, Lone Wolf and Cub, to be published in its entirety for the first time in America. An epic samurai adventure of staggering proportions - over 7000 pages - Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Okami in Japan) is acknowledged worldwide for the brilliant writing of series creator Kazuo Koike and the groundbreaking cinematic visuals of the late Goseki Kojima, creating unforgettable imagery of stark beauty, kinetic fury, and visceral thematic power that influenced a generation of visual storytellers both in Japan and in the West. Don`t miss this monumental monthly release, twenty-eight volumes, with each collection approximately 300 pages!

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Lone Wolf and Cub Vol 2: The Gateless Barrier

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The epic continues! Among the five stories in this issue: Cub has been captured while Lone Wolf lies unconscious! All of Cub's captors are cruel, all but the osue (the lowest maid). But her help may be her undoing. The household waits for the feared Lone Wolf to come looking for his son...and when he does...pick up Volume Two to find out what happens -- plus four other great stories, as this classic epic continues!

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Lone Wolf and Cub Vol 3: The Flute of the Fallen Tiger

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Join renegade samurai Itto Ogami and his infant son, Daigoro, in five more adventures on the dark road to Hell. What do three mysterious Shogunate assassins, a street entertainer, and the crests of the dead have in common? "The Baby Cart Wolf" continues his dealing of death for gold and encounters one ronin who is bent on putting a stop to his journey. Will he succeed? Follow the monthly adventures of Lone Wolf and Cub, one of the true classics of comics literature, available in America for the first time in over a decade!

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Lone Wolf and Cub Vol 4: The Bell Warden

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Dark Horse continues its presentation of the entirety of Japan's Lone Wolf and Cub, one of the unquestioned landmarks of graphic fiction, packaged in the digest format preferred by creator Goseki Kojima. The fourth volume of this ambitious monthly program collects four classic Lone Wolf tales, including one never before seen in America, where little Daigoro searches for his lost father while amazing a well-known samurai with his warrior's eyes and cool demeanor. Also, the Lone Wolf takes on the sons of the war-bell warden, legions of organized crime bosses, and a mysterious tattooed lady with a dark story and impeccable killing skills. It's bloody and romantic...and among the best the comics medium has to offer.

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A Rabbit's Eyes

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Ms. Kotani believes in her ill-behaved and ill-kempt students, especially the nearly autistic one with an obsession for flies. A Rabbit's Eyes is a touching novel about a young and idealistic first-year elementary school teacher, her hardscrabble class of outcasts, and the reward for her belief in them. A call to action, from Japan's schoolteachers' favorite author.

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The Method Actors

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The Method Actors traces the disappearance of a young, gifted military historian named Michael Edwards from his desk in Tokyo and his sister Meredith's return to the city in search of him. Michael's research into international war crimes trials will take his sister through four hundred years of history, myth and propaganda, love and infidelity, religious transport and hallucination...

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Naoko

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Naoko, a major bestseller and film in Japan, is a poignant and wily take on gender relations from a master of the detective story. Expertly and seamlessly interweaving the real and the unreal, Naoko involves a regular guy whose world is rocked when his wife dies in a bus accident. His young daughter survives, but seems to be inhabited by her mother's personality.

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Octopus Girl 1

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Toru Yamazaki made a big, bloody splash in the mid-1990s when his outrageous Octopus Girl horror stories debuted. This talented and twisted manga artist has found recent popularity in different fields, as a major Japanese television personality and a recording artist. Be prepared to be mind-boggled with his first insane manga collection, as the delightfully disturbing Octopus Girl is finally presented in English. Teenage monsters lose their hearts and heads in a relentlessly gory collection of dark humor and horror! Carving a comical niche in modern horror manga, Toru Yamazaki's Octopus Girl serves up the most disgusting dishes of heartbreak and revenge found on land or at sea. Have a side order of nervous laughter with your main course of bloodcurdling fear, some gore with your teen angst and some killer instincts with your kawaii! These shocking vignettes will hypnotize fans of the macabre and the absurd, as intestines, eyeballs and fluids of all sorts shoot enthusiastically across Yamazaki's pages!

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Reiko the Zombie Shop: Vol 1

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Terror has struck the sleepy little town of Shiraike. A serial killer stalks the streets murdering innocent girls. Twenty-nine grisly murders have been committed, with no clues to catch the killer. That is, until the town receives a strange visitor: a beautiful young woman who can raise the dead. She is Reiko the Zombie Shop, necromancer for hire. For a price, she'll wake your dead, if only to find a clue to their demise, but she's not responsible for what the dead will say or do once they awaken!

Part Sixth Sense and part Evil Dead-the ultra-violent, comical, and disturbing manga Reiko the Zombie Shop has been resurrected stateside and translated into English in its original format for the first time. Don't miss the first volume of the series that took Japanese readers by the throat and made them scream for more!

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Reiko the Zombie Shop: Vol 2

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The last time we saw Reiko, the beautiful, young necromancer, she had her head sliced off! But you can't keep a bad girl down. Our Miss Reiko has got a few friends in dark places who'll make sure she hasn't shuffled off this mortal coil just yet, even if she has to borrow a body or two. Part Sixth Sense and part Evil Dead - the ultra-violent, comical and disturbing manga Reiko the Zombie Shop has been resurrected Stateside and translated into English in its original format for the first time.

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Reiko the Zombie Shop: Vol 3

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The battle between Reiko and her twin sister, Riruka, who is bent on controlling the world with a slave-army of zombies, reaches a blood-dimmed crescendo. Twins they may be, and while related by blood, there aren't two people out for each other's throats more than Reiko and Riruka. Only one of the two will be left standing in this ultimate gore-soaked splatter showdown!

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School Zone: 1

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The Queen of Horror Manga, Kanako Inuki, brings you School Zone, a series about ordinary children who encounter the strange and terrifying at their very own school, and discover that many ghost stories, urban legends, and superstitions are truly and horribly real.

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Museum of Terror: Tomie 1

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Dark Horse Comics is very proud to present Museum of Terror, a series of horror stories by Japan's foremost creator of horror manga. Full of compelling and charming characters and relationships, and featuring some of the finest comics art available, Junji Ito has seen his works translated into successful films in Japan. Ito's Uzumaki, the thrilling and grotesque manga and film, has already found success in America, and now we present "Tomie," the first story in this fantastic series. "Tomie" is the story of an eternally youthful and beautiful high school girl, whose admirers are obsessed to the point of murdering her. But to their horror, she is reincarnated over and over. "Tomie" also became a popular film in Japan, and now it launches Dark Horse's series of Ito's horrific works, Museum of Terror.

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Arm of Kannon: Volume 1

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The archeologist Tozo Mikami discovers an ancient Buddhist relic, The Arm of Kannon, an object of strange and mystical power. But soon afterward, he disappears, leaving behind a wife and two children. Three years later he reappears... but he may not be the man he was. His son, Mao, suspects the worst. And when a mysterious warrior shows up as a protector for he and his sister, Mao begins piecing together the secrets of the relic that may lead to a secret organization committed to exploiting the magic of the ancient relic for the development of super soldiers for the military.

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The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service: 1

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Your body is their business! Five young students at a Buddhist university, three guys and two girls, find little call for their job skills in today's Tokyo... among the living, that is! But all that stuff in college they were told would never pay off - you know, channeling, dowsing, ESP - gives them a direct line to the dead... the dead who are still trapped in their corpses and can't move on to the next reincarnation. The five form the Kurosagi ("Black Heron" - their ominous bird logo) Corpse Delivery Service: whether suicide, murder, accident, or illness, they'll carry your body wherever it needs to go to free your soul! The kids from Kurosagi can smell a customer a mile away - it's a good thing one of the girls majored in embalming!

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WHO FIGHTER with Heart of Darkness

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The first story in this anthology, "Who Fighter," is a play on the legendary "Foo Fighters," the nickname given to the mysterious, UFO-like fireballs that were sighted by World War II pilots. An ace Japanese pilot manages to shoot one of the fireballs down... or does he? As ominous signs and visions begin to follow in his steps, the bewildered pilot wonders if he's lost not only his memory of the incident-but also his very mind! The second story, "Heart of Darkness," is Takizawa's unique take on the Joseph Conrad novel that inspired the film Apocalypse Now. A Japanese war hero, Colonel Kurutsu, has gone rogue, setting up his own private kingdom deep upriver in the jungles of Burma. A young captain, sent to execute Kurutsu, finds that the true reasons for the Colonel's "desertion" are very different from what he was told. Finally, a short piece, "Tanks," closes out the collection with a surreal voyage through one hundred years of armored vehicle battles! WHO FIGHTER with Heart of Darkness is the Weird War of manga, and Seiho Yakizawa is poised to make an explosive addition to Dark Horse Manga's lineup of adult works by mature storytellers!

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Banya: The Explosive Delivery Man 1

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With a worldwide war raging between humans and monsters, the young delivery men of the Gaya Desert Post Office do not pledge allegiance to any country or king. The faithful three are banded together by a pledge to deliver. “Fast. Precise. Secure.”  Banya, the craziest and craftiest of the bunch, will stop at nothing to get a job done. Known as the “Explosive Delivery Man” for his risk taking, bold resolve, and impeccable record, Banya agrees to complete a wounded soldier's mission to transport a parcel of great importance – not knowing what dangers lie in store for him and his friends! As their arduous journey begins, Banya promises, "There isn't a delivery I can't make. I always deliver."

Kim Young-Oh's fantastical world is filled with unique monsters, vicious swordplay, and a dash of hotfooted humor.

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Ohikkoshi

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These stories are told with the same bold, kinetic art style and brilliantly paced storytelling that Samura's Blade of the Immortal epic is famous for. The main offering, "Ohikkoshi," follows the turbulent paths of several twenty-something art students as they fall in love, fall in lust, play in rock bands, ride motorbikes, eat, sleep (together) and try to avoid making life decisions while drunk. This romantic comedy is a "Japanese Art School Confidential" packed with absurd humor, obscure Death Metal references and some expertly-placed, dramatic revelations. "Luncheon of Tears Diary" is a vibrant, genre-busting tale that also peppers its humor with sharp, dramatic moments. Natsumi Funabashi, a virgin, is an aspiring manga creator on a quest for love and a fulfilling career. Along the way, she has to cope with overzealous men, gang warfare, a mahjong addiction and a lascivious manga editor. This collection is rounded off by Samura's hilarious "Kyoto Super Barhopping Journal: Bloodbath at Midorogaike," a rare, autobiographical travel piece, which is also a strange love song to Kyoto.

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