apoc9

The story isn’t what you may think from the cover. It’s mainly murder mystery, psychological thriller and sort of bizarre romance. It follows Arata Natsume single man in his thirties. Despite his delinquent like character, he is working in public service as guidance counsellor helping kids, who have problems in family or in school. One day a boy asks him to meet killer of his father. The boy has been exchanging letters with the murderer for a while. He wants to find head of his father, that is still missing from brutal murder of three men including his father. Arata decides to pretend he wrote the letters and goes visit the killer, Shinju Shinagawa nicknamed Pierrot Shinagawa, because she is currently held in a prison appealing death penalty verdict she has been given. The visit doesn’t go exactly as he expects. In a moment of desperation, he proposes to marry the woman.

The story switches between characters occasionally, but the main focus is the viewpoint of main character Arata. What the manga does well is to show Shinju in range of very creepy to very cute. Visually the manga is really nice and uses more realistic art style to give serious drama vibes to the story. It also portraits Shinju as character acting in a manipulative way or rather one cannot be sure what is genuine and what is just an act. Still the series manages to swing reader between fear of the Shinju and sympathy. Arata believes himself to be in the control as he tries to gain her trust. He is somewhat managing, but he is strangely drawn to this woman.

The series oozes mystery from every arc. It can be also quite grim and dark so don’t read it, if you are depressed. I don’t expect any good ending, but it raises in my curiosity, which pulls me to read further. It has some good moments. It stands out from stuff I've read so far.

Japanese difficulty 7/10 (see my profile for details about various difficulty scores)

This series does not contain furigana usual exceptions aside. The text can be quite dense with lot of crime/law terminology. There are even judicial proceedings in the story. I wouldn’t recommend the series unless you have good vocabulary.

This review is written after reading eight volumes (all released volumes).