|
Bloody Monday
Manga Review
Espionage, femme fatales, government agencies terrorism, and hackers. Life is not boring for Takagi Fujimaru, a teenage genius hacker known as Falcon. He walks a fine grey line of cyber mischief for justice. Taking a step back into real world, real life hackers who are caught serve prison time, or can make enemies out governments for exposing secrets. In hacker terms, Fujimaru can be a self-serving Black Hat or an ethical White Hat.
Bloody Monday explores an angle from what if Fujimaru's father gets framed for a crime he didn't commit, and Fujimaru himself has to seek to prevent a Bloody Monday from being unleashed onto Japan society. Bloody Monday is a bio-terrorist weapon developed by the Russians that has victims dying a gruesome, bloody and painful death.
 Tadashi Agi, who is the writer for Bloody Monday, is known in Japan, and possibly to American fans under several different writer pen names. His works have been and continue to be translated into English. Under the same name of Tadashi, he is responsible for Drops of God. As Seimaru Amagi, he is responsible for Kindaichi Case Files and Remote. As Yuya Aoki he has created GetBackers, and Psycho Busters. Do these titles sound familiar? If so then as a reader/anime watcher, understand that getting into Bloody Monday promises a gripping story, and if not then this is a list to get started into appreciating what made Tadashi Agi a successful storyteller.
Bloody Monday is already concluded in Japan with 11 volumes, and a couple of years ago, it was made into a live action adaptation two season drama series. To look into reading any similar series, consider Death Note for its masterful and psychological questions that it brings for the reader to consider.
Reviewed by Linda Yau, May 2012
Below: Panels from Bloody Monday.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
