|
Reiko the Zombie Shop
Manga Review
Terror has struck the sleepy little town of Shiraike. A serial killer stalks the streets murdering innocent girls. Twenty-nine grisly murders have been committed, with no clues to catch the killer. That is, until the town receives a strange visitor: a beautiful young woman who can raise the dead. She is Reiko the Zombie Shop, necromancer for hire. For a price, she'll wake your dead, if only to find a clue to their demise, but she's not responsible for what the dead will say or do once they awaken!
John Carpenter would LOVE to make this into a movie — it just has B-Grade horror flick written all over it.
 Reiko the Zombie Shop is a great idea — a traveling necromancer (who also, of course, happens to be a gorgeous high school student — hey, this is manga, right?) available for hire to raise the dead so the living can converse with them, to get information about how they died or whatever. Except that the dead that anyone would really want to raise are going to be... well, not happy. And here you can read "not happy" as "really, really violent."
Reiko doesn't use her power simply for the benefit of her fellow man. She makes no bones about it; she is in it for the money. The people that hire her are usually trying to find out how a loved one or friend passed away.
 Reiko recommends chaining down the body before bringing it back from the dead, as if the guilty party is in the room - the person that had a hand in the untimely demise - well, there is no telling what might happen (Zombie will get medieval on his ass). Of course, just because a person is a zombie, doesn't mean they are brainless, and sometimes they have a wily way of getting out of those chains during their short stay in the land of the living...
 The returned dead, however, hold grudges - if they were wronged in life, or killed, they attempt to break free before being returned to total deadness to finish off the person or persons who wronged them. After all, they are are already dead, and have nothing to lose by taking revenge!
Creator Rei Mikamoto has crafted an ingenious way to foster huge dramatic potential, due to Reiko's life-bringing chant — that not only just resurrect the intended deceased, but anything else dead within earshot.. cats, dogs, butterflies, unborn babies.... the list goes on (and it's quite imaginative).
Actually, never mind John Carpenter, George Romero might be a better choice for director, or maybe Rob Zombie...
Reviewed by Brian Cirulnick, May 2010
Below: Panels from Reiko the Zombie Shop.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
