Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service

File under "comics I am reading". The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is a Japanese series, released in the US by Dark Horse Manga. I picked it up out of curiosity when the first book came out, and was interested enough to pick up the second. This is good, because the book really starts to hit it's stride in the second book. It has quickly become one of my favorites, probably my favorite current Japanese title. The story line involves a group of Buddhist students with unusual powers or skills that band together in a business venture to carry out the wishes of the recently deceased so that they may rest in peace. The central character Karatsu is a medium of sorts, who has the ability to speak with the recently dead. He also seems to be haunted by a powerful ghost whose intentions are a mystery... thus far it seems to be a benefactor, but clues are pointing to possible nefarious origins to this spirit.

Anyhow, the group finds early on that working for dead people is a failing business model, and are constantly trying to find ways to make it work. Stories have involved an Iraqi civilian whose body was accidentally shipped to Japan, a "bodyworlds" type scheme, a mummification scheme, an alien scheme, stolen kidneys speaking to Karatsu, a guest appearance from the lead character from Housui Yamazaki's book Mail, and unusual competing services. The writing is topical and savvy, and avoids temptations of cliche, such as the hacker/computer whiz character. She is very absent most of the time, which is good. Over-use of the wild-card is bad. The art style has grown on me. At first I was jarred by the juxtaposition of cutsey manga and horror imagery, but it works, and has improved over the run.

I hear there is a U.S. film being made based on these books. Hopefully if this is so it will be worthy of the comic.