Search and destroy

Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun) outdoes himself with this gonzo sci-fi reimagining of Osamu Tezuka's classic manga series Dororo. In Kaneko's hands, the feudal Japanese setting of Tezuka's original becomes a futuristic dystopia with a Soviet brutalist aesthetic. In the aftermath of a war between humans and androids known as Kreachers, Doro, a snarky child thief, runs afoul of the gang lords who rule a snowbound city. He falls in with Hyaku, a young woman dressed in animal hides who's out to retrieve body parts she believes were stolen from her by Kreachers. The story is packed with wall-to-wall action, stunningly and gruesomely rendered: explosions, bloody assassinations, wild animal attacks, underground cyborg surgery, a fight on top of a speeding semitruck. But beneath the bloodshed is a deceptively well-structured story about injustice, revenge, and the blurred lines between organic life and technology. Kaneko is heavily influenced by American artists like Coop, Frank Kozik, and Charles Burns, as Frederico Anzalone notes in his introduction, and there are even elements of Will Eisner in the book's rambling cityscapes. It's a blast of pure cyberpunk energy. (July)

Kaneko (Bambi and Her Pink Gun) reimagines Tezuka's 1960s epic fantasy saga Dororo, which followed the exploits of a warrior quest to rid feudal Japan of supernatural demons, as a gritty, fast-paced cyberpunk thriller set in a dystopian city held in the grip of vile mechanical crime lords. Years ago, a brilliant inventor saved a grievously injured young girl from certain death by replacing her damaged or missing flesh with cybernetic enhancements. Now the girl is on a hyperviolent quest for revenge against the monsters who deprived her of her humanity, starting with a corpulent thug in possession of her tongue and a sadistic art collector who counts her preserved eyeballs among his prized possessions. But is it really possible to regain one's humanity through violence and vengeance, or will the hero end up even worse off than if she'd never been kept alive years earlier? VERDICT Kaneko retains Tezuka's relentless pacing, flair for melodrama, and thematic focus on justice, corruption, and individuality within an oppressive society, while integrating elements of body horror and an increased focus on the unsustainability of societies where vital resources are controlled by a thriving minority, to the detriment of the masses.