Reiko the Zombie Shop: Volume 4

This fourth volume of Reiko the Zombie Shop gets her involved in a variety of jobs that involve child kidnappings, runaway robots, terrorist groups, and campground killers. Through it all Reiko maintains her "Oh well" attitude towards death and violence. It's not that she doesn't care about other people, she's just more interested in money, but on occasion, she does bring her own brand of morality to the fore and dispenses reluctant justice to evildoers. Towards the end of the volume, a new threat emerges as Midori Yurikawa, the little sister of of psycho in residence Saki, who Reiko killed and enslaved as her zombie fighter. Apparently, Midori has been in a coma for 10 years after being pushed down a flight of stairs by her older sister, an older sister who tortured her for years both physically and mentally. As you could surmise, she doesn't really have the healthiest of mental states when she awakens. I really enjoyed this fourth volume of Reiko because it went back to the more varied and episodic nature of Volume 1. I just like seeing Reiko having to deal with all these different situations which gives her personality so many opportunities to shine. Most normal readers will enjoy watching sometimes gruesome judgement come to those who have gone against the spirit of goodness which Reiko is somehow a guardian of, even if she doesn't know it. Most of the bad guys and girls in Reiko are the worst scum of humanity and are guilty of the worst crimes we can imagine. The art as always is awesome, if at times a little too focused on women's chest areas. The action is perfectly drawn with no confusion when it gets fast paced. The story has just the right touch of gore, horror, and humor. Great read. If you like this series, also check out Octopus Girl, another manga published by Dark Horse.

The first three volumes had Reiko confronting her sister Riruka, but in the fourth volume, she's back to her daily routines again. It surrounds Reiko in about three or four separate stories of random zombie-summoning cases. The first one focuses on a terrorist group called "Gigadeth" that has members that blow themselves up with a detonator embedded in their tooth. A mother that loses her daughter after she accidentally picks up a packaged doll that explodes and kills tons of people is enraged. It's basically a tale of vengeance and somehow Reiko gets involved, but her role only causes a diversion for the terrorist members. The second and third are different stories, but much more disturbing (the previous is about kidnappers who invade the home of another deranged psychopath and the latter is about an advanced robot that was created to help out in homes like a maid). The fourth story focuses on a supervisor of an art club who survived a grueling experience during a camping trip with three female students (one of them being Reiko) and tells the story of what happened. Although I was fairly satisfied with this volume, because I'm a fan of this series, there were few things that I was a bit disappointed with. First of all, Jasmine (who happens to be one of the survivors from volume 2 and 3 BTW) only appears once and very briefly early in this volume. I wish she had a bigger role such as fighting alongside Reiko. Secondly, Reiko didn't have much of a central role and instead, it was the characters in each of the stories that had the main roles. I really wish Reiko had summoned her Saki zombie sooner or later. She barely even fought. Besides those things, I did rather enjoy the fifth story (which is a part of the main plot) and the actual introduction of Midori (Saki's younger sister). It finishes with a bit of a shocker, which was just lurking behind Midori's mental disorder. Overall, it leads into the next volume (which I can't wait for) and for the majority, it's a good read, but don't expect the same level of flavour that you got from the first three volumes. This is more like a "time out" episode. Reiko's still hot though.