Tatsuki Fujimoto has been getting endless praise for his “relentlessly cruel” manga Chainsaw Man. But for me, the master of ultra-violence and nihilism will always be Takayuki Yamaguchi.
Yamaguchi is the unsung hero of fucking your shit up. After graduating from renowned lunatic Kazuo Koike’s Gekiga Sonjuku manga creator program, he went on to gift the world with gems like Apocalypse Zero and Shigurui.
Sadly, his genius has been lost to the masses.
So lost that even I didn’t know that he was working on a new manga until it ended. Champion RED published the final chapter of Efu no Shichinin earlier this month.
That’s what it’s like being a fan of his. Most of his manga is difficult to find even on scanlation sites. Shigurui has been fully translated, but much of his work is incomplete. Efu no Shichinin hasn’t even been started. I can only assume this is because it is too powerful.
Media Blasters published the Apocalypse Zero manga from 2005-2007, but they stopped after six volumes. Those books and their release of the OVA haven’t graced a store shelf in over a decade.
Funimation released Shigurui: Death Frenzy on DVD and Blu-ray in 2009. Scott Green from Ain’t It Cool News called Shigurui “Ninja Scroll meets Fight Club.” I’m not sure I’d agree with his assessment, but I would watch that show, too.
All hope is not lost, however. New chapters of Apocalypse Zero started coming out in June courtesy of Rheph and Sargent. Before this, the last chapter was released over a decade ago when Gantz_Waitingroom dropped the series.
[Source: Anime News Network]
