The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (vol. 10) by Eiji Otsuka, art by Housui Yamazaki, translated by Toshifumi Yoshida, edited by Carl Gustav Horn
It’s true, it’s true once again … good things come to those who wait and indeed, after what seemed like way too long (including multiple emails from Amazon warning of delivery delays first because of the snowpocalypse and then apparently because of warehouse glitches or some such), I finally got volume 10 (whoo hooo!!). Uhm … and not to whinge again, but that final page came way too fast. I tried to make it last by doling out sections, but that lasted one overnight, alas. Now apparently I’ll need to wait until August for my next fix. Will I last?
Volume 10 opens with Kurosagi regulars – psychic Kuro Karatsu, corpse dowser Makoto Numata, hacker Ao Sasaki, embalmer Keiko Makino, and channeler Yuji Yata with his alien sock puppet Kereellis – sitting in a class about AEDs (automatic external defibrillators) as a favor to their ex-cop social worker/sometime employer Sasayama. Their usual help-wronged-corpses-to-their-final-peaceful-rest mission gets interrupted when corpses suddenly start disappearing, as if they literally came back to life and walked away … turns out what they learned in that AED class proves useful after all, when they meet an ex-killer with super-AED capabilities.
Next up, the team travels to a small seaside town to deliver a retired police dog to his ex-partner and chase down a centuries-old legend of a murdered monk, only to get embroiled in a drug smuggling/illegal immigrant plot filled with … well … a lot of corpses. Then they get sent to be advisors for a reality television show starring psychic mystery solvers, only to run into Numata’s Master Azuma who taught him all the secrets of dowsing for lost souls. Tragedy strikes (more than once) and Numata’s past as an orphaned 6-year-old is revealed, how he got that way, why he always wears dark glasses, and a posthumous letter that takes him to a faceless building alone. Good thing it’s pouring rain …
One last thing … even if you don’t usually read endnotes (although you really should with this whole series, because not only do they offer some helpful insights, but they’re also just downright entertaining, too), make sure to read the final note in this volume …
Click here to check out volumes 1-4, and here for volumes 5-9.
Readers: Adult
Published: 2010 (United States)
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