Color of Rage

A whaling ship goes down off the Japanese coast in 1783. Two men survive: George, a Japanese sailor, and King, an African-American slave. They cut their shackles on the beach and set out looking for somewhere they can simply live. What they find is feudal Japan, a rigid caste society shut off from the world, with no place for either of them. Koike uses the pairing to hold a mirror up to Japan, lining up American slavery against the confinement built into his own country. Kano draws it raw and physical, all motion and impact. It is blunt, violent pulp with a real idea underneath, written with the anti-authority charge of the era that shaped Koike.