The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service Volume 1 (v)

Quality wise this is a very good product with virtually no wear. Shipping time was standard and came well packaged. The book itself has a great cover both, design and material, being made with a thin cardboard paper helping it stick out.This manga is definitely refreshing, combining traditional/supernatural Japanese culture with modern and contemporary. Filled with dark humor and even darker "villians". This volume does its job at introducing the characters in an organic way and fleshes them out through the volume.The stories contained are very dark, though tend to have a lighter ending, so if your looking for a light hearted manga, this isn't it. But if you want something different that isn't way out there (or full of kids, which as an adult reader can be tiring) then this is a really great read.

The interesting premise attracted me to this book, and I enjoyed it very much. Since I am a reader of Manga, but not a collector, I probably will stop here before I get hooked

Other reviews have explained the concept in depth, but just to reiterate; it's a story about a group of young liberal arts graduates whose traumatic backgrounds have left them with talents for working with the dead. Armed with these talents, and with Kuro Karatsu's supernatural ability to speak with the dead, they seek to make a living by carrying out their last wishes.Just to get this out there, this isn't a series for everyone. It's a series about death, and neither the writing nor the art ever shy away from that. Of course, with a series whose plot revolves around characters speaking with and working for dead people, you expect to see a lot of corpses; but there's nothing pretty or glorified about death in this series. Many of the deaths are quite gruesome, and in addition to the violence and gore we see corpses in various stages of decomposition and decay -- and if there's a less or a more gruesome way to die, you can bet that this manga takes the second route.That said, if you're willing to stomach that, this series has a lot to offer. Much of its enjoyment is lent by the brilliant and witty translation of Carl Gustav Horn, but he's got a lot of quality to work with. The story is complex, often funny, often touching and profound. And there are a few things that this manga brings to the table that very few others do.The first is that for all the dark gallows-style humor and lighthearted wisecracks in the face of suffering and death, and the unromantic and down-to-earth approach with which they handle the corpses, the story and the characters can be astonishingly compassionate. The fact that the characters are Buddhists is brought up only occasionally, but the characters live by their principles rather than talking about them. It probably explains a lot to consider that in Japan, most people are "Shinto in their daily lives, Christian at weddings, and Buddhist at funerals," since the Buddhist priests take over most of the rituals of death that Shinto (and Japanese culture at large) shrinks away from.In the very first pages of this volume, when introducing the protagonist Kuro Karatsu, Ao Sasaki puts her finger right on it: the dead speak to him because he's the kind of guy who can't say no to them. Karatsu feels great sympathy for the lost souls of the dead and will go to lengths beyond the pale to try to fill their last wishes -- even carrying a corpse halfway across the world into a war zone in order to return him to his home soil! But he's not in the business of revenge, or even pursuit of justice -- his focus is always on helping dead souls find peace. The introduction of Sasayama halfway through the series -- a balding and crippled government worker with a colorful background -- adds another dimension to this strange compassion. In Sasayama's character you can get a glimpse of what Karatsu will probably look like after the world has had fifty more years or so to crush his idealism; he's a miserly, cynical, embittered hardass with a shady past and a collection of violent skills... who works long hours in a low-paid social service job trying to save as many people as best as he can.The second thing this series brings to the table is that for possibly the first time in a horror series centering around corpses and zombies, the human dead are not monsters. Although they can be frightening, they're usually portrayed as sad and sympathetic, and the main characters want to help them, not to destroy them. The villains of the piece are usually -- not always -- the murderer who killed them in the first place, which makes a lot more sense if you think about it. It's a unique story angle not often seen in manga. Compare this to MAIL, another series by the Housui Yamazaki. That series, like Kurosagi, is a horror series centering around the spirits of the departed -- but there the ghosts are merely monsters that have to be defeated, rather than people who need to be helped. Kurosagi offers a much more subtle and nuanced approach to good, evil, and humanity.The third thing this series has to offer is a very un-idealized, often scathingly critical look at Japanese society. How many manga have you read that talk about Unit 731 and Japan's actions during the Chinese occupation of World War II? Even Sasayama lampshades it when he says "Now that they're teaching 'patriotism' in schools again, you've probably never heard of it." Otsuka is not attempting to demonize Japan, but he doesn't refrain lashing out where criticism is due -- nor does he shrink from portraying the less scenic or elegant portions of Japanese society. A storyline in volume 8 discusses the history of abortion and infanticide in Japan, from the perspective of a young nurse whose grandmother served as a 'midwife' for desperate mothers wanting to be rid of their babies. It's hard stuff and the author doesn't back down from it.This series is not without flaws and criticisms, and as mentioned several times in this review, not everyone will be able to stomach such a bittersweet mix of dark story elements and hard-hitting illustration. But if you're ready for that, and you read Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, you'll take away some things from this series that you'll never regret.

Five students in a buddhist school are trying to find their way in the world. The only problem is that they come from irregular families and they have irregular commections when it comes to the dead. Some can see things about the dead, others can commune with spirits, one knows Western techniques that include embalming, and one can actually cause things to happen around him. The last one has some frightening things that follow him around, too, with spirits sometimes coming around or bodies atually getting up and taking care of business. And when the five come together, things go from strange to downright dangerous, as the dead find solace in communication and wrapping up loose ends - not to mention funding a little venture called The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.The thing I was expecting from this book and the thing I received were two different things. I say this happily, too, because i was skeptical about the venture when it came to this book. The descriptions made this sound like it was going to be a tutoring lesson on how bodies are dealt with - not exactly the excitement I want when I read a little horror - but it turned out to be so much more. When I read it the first panels I saw the nature of the business that the characters were delving into, and when I read the stories here I saw that it had a bleak overtone being installed and that the characters were going to be oddly fixating. All in all that meant I was in for something different, and different normally means that I am in for a real treat. That made me happy, and happier still when i noticed how the art and storylines combined to make something really dark and twisted.I also like the things that could be learned from this book in a cultural aspect - even though the book is about dealing with the dead, Buddhism has certain laws pertaining to that. I had never really thought of a Buddhist school until now, and having a B.S. in buddhism seemed almost alien to me. The book made me done some research into that topic, and learning is always a good things. On top of that, the book explains some of this outright and allows novices to the culture to understand other things by watching what is presented to the viewer, making me a happy camper when everything was said and done. It didn't make me feel stupid or talk down to me, but it did not treat me like a complete fool and leave a lot to over-examination.This is a book that reads the correct way and gives translations when they are needed. That is a great thing in the world of books that oftentimes do not do what we need done, and it makes for a better set-up when everything is said and done. If the book itself sounds interesting to you, check out the first volume and be surprised by some of the story set-ups. i certainly was one of the people who waited around until I finally needed something new to try out, then found myself happy with what I saw emerging from the backdrop.

Arrived on time! Alright story, good price.