This is the seventh volume of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service series, which I'm really enjoying!

I discovered this series after stumbling across Vol. 5 at a local used book store, and promptly fell in love with it. The TV Tropes page calls it a black comedy horror manga, which certainly fits, but the actual mix of emotional, spiritual, mundane, funny, and gruesome elements is hard to describe...

Most of the volumes contain five or six self-contained stories, and the episodic nature of the series makes it easier to drop in at any point than it might be in some of the more continuous-story series. (There is some character development among the regular characters, and some recurring themes that crop up here and there, so there's some benefit to reading the books in order, but it's not essential.)

This volume opens with one of the funnier stories in the series: the client/victim turns out to be a rabid manga/anime/videogame fan who winds up inside a robot, gleefully charging around in a shopping center as our heroes try to figure out how to stop him. Since he's treating the floors of the shopping center as levels in a game, this could be challenging! (As it turns out, the team needs a little help from Yaichi, their guiding spirit on this one; he's a mysterious phantom who comes to the aid of Karatsu, the one who can speak with the dead, and whenever his scarred face and flowing hair shows up in a panel, you know something's going to happen.)

Speaking of scars - the second story (a two-parter), which opens with a woman being run over by a truck, features a mysterious character who has facial scars very similar to those of Yaichi. (What this might mean I don't know yet, other than to suspect that people who are marked in that way have some mystical power. Hopefully later editions will expand on this.) The story deals with some very unusual side effects of plastic surgery, with some extremely disturbing illustrations. During the team's investigation, Kamatsu and Yaichi both get their spirits bound by a mysterious (that word again!) group of female spirits - and it seems that the leader is Yaichi's mother... More tantalizing back-story that has yet to be resolved!

The last story in this volume is a three-parter about unexpected deaths during the on-location filming of a horror movie. This one is also on the humorous side, with lots of riffs about film-making and special effects as compared with the all-too-real gruesome remains that our heroes often encounter.

As with all of the volumes in this series, the end-notes are almost as enjoyable as the stories; in addition to an overview of Japanese and Chinese characters and pronunciation, and the translation of the sound-effects characters from the panels, there are many notes about everything from the songs that inspired the chapter titles to a long discussion of robotics in Japan. In one note about doujinshi (the self-published fanfic that's not only common but accepted in Japan), the editor mentions that there isn't any doujinshi about Kurosagi Corpse - yet; he adds "Show the world the true spirit of Yankee innnovation, and be the first! I heard there's a Yata/Karatsu shipper out there." [Yata's the guy who channels an alien through his hand-puppet, not my first choice for shipping with anyone {snerk!}] I was also tickled by a note in which the reasons for a change in translators is explained - the original translator moved on to produce the English dub of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, a very different series from this one, though I loved it too. The notes are chatty and informative and often very funny, a delightful addition to the books.

[Click here to see all the books I've registered from this series.]

I plan to take this book to the book-buffet of this year's BookCrossing convention in DC (Apr. 15-17; see the Conventions page for more info). Whether the book gets picked up by another BCer or wild-released somewhere in the area during the many planned events, I hope it finds an appreciative reader!

Caught at the book buffet at the BC in DC convention 2011.
Saving for my friend Brian who loves anime and manga...

picked up at a fun Bookcrossing meet up!

Interesting! Released at local bookcrossing meeting.

Will release at local bookcrossing meeting in Cambridge, MA.

Picked up at the BookCrossing Meetup at the Algier's. The back cover blurb's "zombie robot otaku" made me laugh. I've read several other manga series so I grabbed it even though it means jumping in at no. 7.

No rain expected.