King of Thorn Volume 1

In a world petrified by the Medusa virus, a syndrome that rapidly turns its victims to stone, only 160 people are selected to be frozen until a cure can be found. Kasumi's one, only she's a twin, and she's forced to leave her sister behind. As expected in stories of this sort, something goes wrong, and the frozen awake on their own, uncured, surrounded by monsters. Claustrophobic art captures the feeling of being trapped, out of place and pressed on by forces outside one's control, all without confusing the reader. Iwahara (Chikyu Misaki ) is capable of both human caricatures and intimidating dinosaurlike monsters, action feats of daring-do and philosophical torment. An early near-riot sequence demonstrates that people motivated by fear remain the biggest danger, and poor, immoral choices result in immediate destruction. The resulting small group represents a variety of motivations: love of family, survival, greed, religion, protection of the innocent, fear of impending mortality. Kasumi struggles to learn just what she's capable of when pressed, aided by visions of her sister It's a gripping entry in the genre of violent survivor manga, such as The Drifting Classroom , that uses extreme situations to explore the question of human nature. (June)