Dead End 1

Dead End #1

by Shōhei Manabe, Christine Schilling, Jay Antani

Shirou is just your ordinary poor construction worker who happens to stumble into a life-changing event that has him screaming, "There's no place like home." In the midst of his confusion and panic, a mysterious companion tells him that all of his questions will be answered and his memory restored if he recovers five friends in three days.

Genres: Manga, Comics Manga, Comics

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Shōhei Manabe (真鍋昌平) is a veteran manga-ka with numerous titles under his belt, including his worldwide best seller Ushijima the Loan Shark, which has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and was the winner of the 56th Annual Shogakukan Manga Award. Two of Manabe's manga have been made into motion pictures, including the acclaimed manga Smuggler, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival 2011.

Reviews

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impression: Waiting For Godot meets Rebel Without a Cause...will have to read the other volumes to get a complete picture - but very nihilistic so far. I like to 'detour' read now and then; my friend Leo (who knows more about manga than anyone else I know) suggested this book - a detour for sure - but now I really feel lost!

[Denisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another rating: 7/10

Weird, strange but interesting and that ending, so pesimistic >_< and I loved that very raw art.

[Xian Xian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Borrowed From Someone

Here's some more manga, but this one isn't an advanced reader's copy, it's actually sort of hard to find these days. I never heard of this guy at all, Shohei Manabe. I've never even heard of Dead End at all, so of course I would take interest in it.

So basically for the first volume, the main character, filled with ennui and loneliness, witnesses a girl falling from the sky. he takes her home and shelters her, eventually she befriends him, and he develops a crush on her. Along with his gang of bored, smoking, alcoholic friends, they notice that the girl is quite odd, her outlook on life,and her suspicious behaviors. Then one day he finds her missing after a mysterious man murdered all of his friends and he finds that the girl has disappeared. Everything seems to be falling apart and he has to piece everything together, until he wakes up to find that everything is normal and all of his friends don't remember him.

The story isn't really the most unique, mysterious girl, memory loss, but the way it was pulled off made it quite a fun read. The characters are rude and nasty to each other, I love the dialogue, there are some very lively characters. Yet, there's all of these beautifully written sentences, questioning the meaning of life and loneliness, the type of sentences that you find in a literary fiction novel. I wished that I could highlight some of them, or somebody could post them on Goodreads.

At first the artwork sort of bothered me. I didn't dislike it, but the facial features are so drastically different from most manga, that I actually ended up loving it. The characters aren't beautiful and cutesy, they actually look somewhat realistic. The characters have these big, puffy lips, actual noses instead of triangles or cones, and human sized eyes. Urban dirt, grime, and buildings, the artwork is so detailed and the pencil was loved, every little drop of ink was smeared and worked into this manga with care and good eye. But then, isn't that the artist's job?

I look forward to the next few volumes. Dead End is a short series, only four volumes, and I recommend it to anyone who is into mystery, action, and paranormal or surreal manga.

Rating: 5/5

[Leila Anani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This series was pitched to me as: "If David Lynch, Clive Barker and David Cronenberg had a love child that was forced to create manga in the bowels of a torture chamber, then Dead End would be the fruit of its labour" - How could I not scour the Earth for this?

Volume 1 gets off to a good start the plot had me totally hooked and is surprisingly easy to follow given the nature of the story. What lets this down for me and why it only gets 3* when the story deserves a 4 is the hideous artwork - the faces are really ugly. And while cutesy BESM clearly wouldn't suit this, personally I'd prefer something more gothic and less ugly.

Still this series is WELL worth seeking out, as the story is really gripping.

[Shane · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm interested, but a bit confused. Unsure if I will continue this series.