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By Kazuya Minekura (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59816-327-2
This is an intriguing and fast-paced action adventure that best displays the – to western eyes – oddly skewed sensibilities of Japanese storytelling.
Toki, Nobuto and Kazuo are three young men with exceptional abilities and a desperate need for money. So when these strangers are recruited to compete as a unit in an illicit and covert competition called the “Biz†Game they jump at the opportunity, without really considering the consequences.
The game is played by Japanese corporations, which pit their teams in secret, no-holds-barred duels involving espionage, strategy and combat. The stakes are the industrial secrets of the parent company. Losing a match could mean the life of a contestant, but the destruction of a mainstay of the Japanese economy.
As the neophytes score success after success, with increasing awareness of just how dangerous their lives have become they realise that perhaps some things are more important than winning.
Kazuya Minekura has mixed Mission: Impossible and Wall Street to captivating effect and this is a great little read. The series was originally serialized in Japan, but scheduling changes prevented its completion. The creator has resorted to radical measures, however.
Adding three unpublished chapters, he has released this story without an ending (although the narrative end is crafted to culminate a prologue rather than just leave the reader hanging) in the hopes that this will generate enough money and interest to complete the tale. I hope he succeeds, because he certainly has mine.
This book is printed in the ‘read-from-back-to-front’ manga format.
© 2003 Kazuya Minekura. All Rights Reserved. English text © 2006 TOKYOPOP Inc.