The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
| The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service | |
|---|---|
 The gang mugs it up for a chapter page. | |
| Written By | Eiji Otsuka |
| Artist | Housui Yamazaki}} |
| Format | Manga |
| Published By | Kadokawa Shoten (Japanese) Dark Horse (US) |
| Length | 13 volumes (ongoing) |
Contents
Genre
Sum it up in a Sentence:
A motley crew of college grads use their unusual talents to bring peace to the recently dead in exchange for whatever valuables they left behind.
Main Description
Kuro Karatsu and his friends are losers. They graduated from Buddhist college and found it's roughly as useful a bachelor's of arts as far as getting a job's concerned. While doing charity work at Mt. Fiji performing last rites for suicide cases, Karatsu, who can communicate with the restless dead, finds a corpse that wants to be delivered to his girlfriend. The corpse offers them a lottery ticket he'd bought for their help, and after it pays out a minor jackpot, the gang uses the money to start the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.
Karatsu's "client relations" (speaking with the dead and all, he can even make them move sometimes), Makoto Numata typically finds their clients (being a dowser who can only manage to find corpses), Ao Sasaki is the management (being a skilled hacker with favors owed to her by various creeps who collect pictures of dead celebrities), Keiko Makino actually knows how to handle bodies (being one of the few licensed embalmers in Japan), and Yuji Yata (a dorky kid who alleges the puppet on his hand channels the voice of an advanced and obnoxious alien named Kere Ellis) proceed to find and serve the dead. Spooky shit ensues.
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Personal Opinions
OldTimeyProspector
The creator of this manga set out with one goal in mind: In a world over-saturated with zombies, to make the dead fucking scary again. I'd say he did an excellent job. Kurosagi is horrific and unsettling, and the variety of bizarre shit the gang runs into always feels new and creative. The art's also sharp as the writing, and the characters are all really interesting and enjoyable.
The only complaint I have is that the highly episodic, "corpse of the week" structure can get a tad repetitive (it quickly becomes evident nine out of ten mysteries will resolve with Karatsu animating a body for their final revenge). Also I'm not sure I'm thrilled with the fact that apparently every single character has a tragic backstory. It's not that they're bad, they're all written and presented quite well, but I did enjoy the series somewhat more when they were just a bunch of oddball losers bumbling around with corpses. Still, this is a really good series that's worth checking out.
