Dead End (Tokyopop)

    (Tokyopop, 2005)
™ and © 2001 Shohei Manabe

It’s Twilight Zone time in Japan, as Shirou’s life takes a wrong turn when he stumbles across a naked woman in an alley. It’s love at first sight, as he takes Lucy home and feels there is a new meaning to his life, albeit that of a common laborer who parties with friends.

However, when he discovers his buddies are dead and Lucy missing, Shirou awakes to a living nightmare. Thrust into a parallel world, where he no longer inhabits his apartment and his friends no longer recognize him, he is suddenly the target of deadly assailants who want to know where Lucy is. Saved by a mysterious man, Shirou has three days to reunite with five friends to unlock his memory. It’s a good thing he is willing to put up his dukes and die trying.

Borrowing the opening sense of confusion from The X-Files and The Matrix, Shohei Manabe drafts a rough world in which perceptions are as sketchy as the characters. The reader finds many bullet-riddled and bloody scenes but few encouraging answers thus far.

— Oliver Chin
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