Million Joe

A manga about a manga editor who decides to hides the death of a genius manga artist to keep his mega hit series “Million Joe” ongoing.

Super interesting premise and execution. This manga has the feel of a heist movie as the editor, his shady friend, and the chief assistant all work together to pull off this challenging con job on the editor-in-chief and hardcore fans of Million Joe. There’s lots of tension between the 3 of them as they each question if they can trust each other. The editor feels guilt for not monitoring the genius manga artist’s health and doesn’t want to disappoint all the fans. The assistant needs money to cover his large debt but is stressing out about becoming the ghost artist. And the friend idolizes the editor for his bold plan but keeps a secret insurance in case everything goes south. Author Ryoji Toguchi did a great job setting up these tense relationships and the realistic challenges they have to face. Also Iroha Ichimaru‘s art work is very distinct. The characters all have very cartoony designs but it works well to contrast the tense tone of the series.

I won’t spoil have everything turns out but I will say I enjoyed all 3 volumes of this manga!

~dakazu