Smuggler

I first saw Manabe's work while browsing through comics in my friend's apartment in Shinjuku. The style reminded me of Taiyo Matsumoto but the overall feel was some how disturbing, which fit the story well. When I got back to the states I had forgot about Manabe and figured I'd never see his stuff in english anyway. Then I discovered Smuggler. The story is simple: Kinuta is a young guy that got wrapped up in Yakuza controlled gambling, racked up debt, and now has to transport/dispose of corpses in order to get out of hot water with the gang's loan shark. Kinuta and his two fellow "smugglers" get in over their heads even more when the rival gang's assassins, Spine and Gut, start to get in the mix. While primarily plot driven, Kinuta is made easier to empathize with, through a few sparse flashback scenes showing his failure as a small time actor and descent into despair. The art has a very rough, gritty feel. Not a typical manga look and not a polished one. This comes through perfectly in the violent scenes and works to make the scenes with the villian Spine as unsettling as anything in Ichi the Killer. I had a few issue's with some of Manabe's aesthetic decisions, and was let down by the handling of some of the faces. These may sound like major problems (and they would be), BUT a big part of the appeal of this manga is Manabe's raw and disturbing tone. Smuggler was published much earlier then the material I read in Japan, and I don't think Manabe had quite mastered his own style at this point.* Still, Smuggler is a good, self contained (just this one book) read. The nihilistic overtones are broken up by scenes of Kinuta's self-reflection and kind hearted gestures. The reader never knows if a scene is going to end in silence or a bloodbath. I enjoyed reading Smuggler and want to see more of this artists work in English. *Smuggler is from 2000, the comics I read in Japan were from early 2006

Every once in a while a Manga really makes you say "Wow!" and for me it was Smuggler. This is a gritty, urban action drama set on a stage between two warring organized crime families but the real story is about the impact it has on the minor characters...the go betweens and transporters. As the story opens two assassins named Gut & Spine, working for the See-Hi-Ban gang have broken up a meeting of the rival Kodama gang and killed their leader, cutting off his head. We next meet the smugglers, a trio of street hardened leader Jo, Tsukada the wheel man, and Kinuta, an aspiring, disillusioned actor who found himself heavily in debt to a loan shark and is working with Jo to smuggle and dispose of bodies to pay off his debt. Spine and Gut are double-crossed by those who hired them and Spine finds himself captured and turned over to Jo's team to be delivered to the Kodama gang for revenge. The young, naïve Kinuta finds himself riding in the back of the truck with Spine who is restrained not unlike that of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. Kinuta finds himself drawn into a conversation of life and death with the sadistic killer who questions his path in life and the much death and tragedy he has wrought on the world. Kinuta can't help but feel somewhat sorry for the man who he knows will soon be killed horribly when he's delivered to the Kodama gang. But soon, events will take place the leave the transporter's mission in dire straits and Kinuta has to use all of his acting skills to save himself and his partners. Smugglers has a cast of characters who have all seemingly reached the pits of despair and whose lives have little meaning or direction. They continue on doing what they are doing, whether it's killing, smuggling, abusing drugs, whatever because it seems to be the only thing they know...the only thing keeping them going. There are more tragic characters in smuggler than the average Shakespeare drama. Even the twisted Spine evokes emotions of sympathy from readers who see his life for the endless void that it is. The art of Shohei Manabe is also standout. It's much darker and true to life than the average Manga and is reminiscent of Frank Miller's early work. Best of all the story is self-contained and makes for a fantastic single read. Quite powerful! Reviewed by Tim Janson