Tokko, Vol. 1

By Tohru Fujisawa
Tokyopop, 192 pp.
Rating: Mature (18 +)

In the near future, a special branch of the Tokyo Police Department is formed to deal with mysterious rash of mass murders that have been plaguing Japan. The murders are of a grizzly and inhuman nature and, to make things even more interesting, are often accompanied by earthquakes and the sudden appearance of mysterious holes. Enter Ranmaru Shindo, a new member of the Tokyo Police Department who’s assigned to the unit that’s the public face of the investigations, and a survivor of one of the early mass murders. Will he be able uncover the mystery behind the murders, and the mystery of a secret group within the police department know only as Tokko?

Tokko is not high literature. It’s a simple, over-the-top, pulpy action/horror series. The very set up is one that almost defies logic: a mysterious rash of mass murders that have been occuring over the span of about five years with dozens, even hundreds, left brutally mutilated each time, yet life continues along as always despite the fact that the police can’t even begin to come up with a suspect? I don’t know, I’d imagine that Tokyo would be emptied out by the time of the third or fourth one. Can’t imagine anyone wanting to hang around a city where hundreds of people mysteriously die at random, especially since they indicate that this seems to be happening with increasing frequency. So, the premise is a bit of a stretch, but what about the rest of it?

Well, the characters are interesting enough I suppose. Ranmaru’s a fairly likeable guy with a weird sister who’s constantly trying to hook him up with her friends, and who’s fond of teasing him by walking around their apartment half naked. He also suffers from a recurring dream of the day his parents and everyone in the housing project where they lived were murdered in one of the mass killings. (Unlike the actual event however, in his dreams there’s a half naked woman with a sword.) The mystery of the murders have driven him to join the police force in an attempt to bring the killer of his parents to justice and, as he learns in this volume, the descision to join the police force is about to bring him face-to-face with the woman from his dreams as well. Aside from Ranmaru, everyone else is just kind of there. Sure, his friends are likeable enough, but they don’t do a whole lot beside provide a way to feed us information on the world, the murders, and Ranmaru’s life. The Tokko squad, at this point are just mysterious ciphers, while his sister is just comedy relief. Then again, this isn’t the kind of story you read for deep character development.

The art’s very good, but that seems to be the norm for a Fujisawa book. The characters are very detailed and it’s quite easy to tell the various characters apart from one another. The gore and violence are surprisingly in short supply for a horror series. Outside of one crime scene most of gore and blood is just depicted by massive gushers of black ink. It’s certainly not as gorey as many of the horror offerings currently available. The action scenes are also a bit lacking. They tend to be handled fairly quickly and usually consist of a character leaping forward and killing someone in one hit, usually accompanied by the before-mentioned gushers of black ink. Even when the Tokko guys show up the fights tend to last a few panels, most of which will depict a single attack and a character or demon being cut to shreds in the process.

All in all, Tokko is a fun B-movie on paper. Crazy monsters? Check. Giant weapons? Check. Copious blood splatters? Check. A simple and vaguely goofy plot? Definitely a check. It’s light, it’s entertaining, it’s a quick read. Still, it does manage to entertain in a cheesy way.

Volume 1 of Tokko is available now.