Search and Destroy, Volume 1: A cyberpunk cover of a manga classic

If you're going to update a story by a master of the form, making it cool and exciting is the way to go.

Search and Destroy, volume 1
By Atsushi Kaneko
Serialized at

MSX: Mangasplaining Extra

Published by Fantagraphics, 2024
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I often find it interesting when creators come up with “cover” versions of works that have been released previously. They may create new versions of well-known stories or songs, as well as some that may be less known but provide a good structure to build on and do something new. In some cases, the updates may even outshine the originals. But when a creator is covering something that was done by one of the masters of their form, they often have their work cut out for them.

With Search and Destroy, manga artist Atsushi Kaneko has created a new version of Osamu Tezuka’s classic series Dororo. Tezuka is known as the “God of Manga” in Japan, having pioneered the genre (and numerous subgenres) and established so many ideas that his work basically served as a template for nearly every artist that came after him. People are still building on his work, and new versions of many of his most famous creations, such as Astro Boy and Black Jack, are still being created in various mediums, including manga, anime, and live-action movies. His massive body of work is full of great ideas that can be reimagined and potentially turned into something new and fresh.

Of course, not every cover version is going to be interesting or exciting. Some creators slavishly recreate well-known stories or songs without adding much of anything new, making you wonder why they bothered when the original is still there to be enjoyed. Fortunately, Kaneko’s take on Tezuka is a pretty interesting melding of the story’s original framework with some cool, stylish artwork, as well as exciting action and a rage-filled main character who stands out in a well-realized setting.

Kaneko has updated Tezuka’s story about a samurai having adventures and trying to recover the parts of his body that had been stolen by demons, putting it in a cyberpunk setting populated by a mixture of humans and robots. His story follows Hyaku, a young woman who at first appears to be a robot but is actually a human with cybernetic components who is looking to recover her body parts from various figures in the robotic criminal underworld. She also meets up with a young thief named Doro who will most likely end up as a sort of sidekick, or at least an unwelcome accompaniment tagging along on the quest.

That’s an interesting enough way to bring a new take to the story, but what makes it work really well is Kaneko’s storytelling. He spends the whole first volume building to the reveal of who Hyaku is and why she’s stalking various robot criminals. In fact, we barely see any of her in the first few chapters, which focus mostly on powerful criminal figures who are reveling in the human body parts they’ve appropriated. One of them is a fat slob of a criminal boss who is constantly eating because he has a human tongue that allows him to taste in ways that other robots can’t. Another is an arms dealer who has human eyes that allow him to appreciate beauty, although he has found that people’s tears are what he finds to be the most beautiful, so his goal is to bring violence and sadness into the world.

These characters are surprised by the sudden appearance of an almost feral young woman who shows up and tears through their guards, creating scenes of mayhem that would be horrifically gory if they featured blood and guts spurting from human bodies rather than the oil and mechanical components that we see instead. Kaneko provides thrilling, dynamic action, with Hyaku utilizing blades that extend from her cyborg arms and engaging in superhuman (super-robotic?) feats that leave her targets wondering who she is and how she can destroy them so seemingly easily.

The second half of this first volume provides a flashback that gives us a bit of information about Hyaku and lets us know more about her character. These chapters feature her growing up under the supervision of a scientist named Tsukumo who created her cyborg body parts. They’re living in the woods and surviving by hunting the local wildlife, and while Hyaku wants to accompany Tsukumo into the city, he says it’s not safe to do so due to the civil war that’s currently raging. However, as time goes on, the war ends, and robots become integrated into human society. This prompts the scientist to go to the city to get some parts, but unfortunately, he gets recognized, so some assassins come after him. But he did leave a final recording behind to inform Hyaku about her origin and give her a reason to hunt down all the robots who have wronged her so she can become whole again.

With all of that, this volume becomes setup for an ongoing story (there are two more volumes that will be released in the U.S. in the future), but Kaneko also does a great job of establishing an interesting setting. He has filled his futuristic city with nice detail, including a bunch of massive statues that seem to call the propagandistic artwork of the former Soviet Union to mind. It’s a location that’s full of people who mostly seem to trudge throughout the streets robotically as they go about their lives, while more flamboyant and charismatic figures fill out the robot criminal underworld.

Kaneko’s artwork is also unique in the world of manga. His pages are detail-heavy, with a lot of attention paid to architecture. The characters are detailed with thick lines and rounded features that are less like the standard big eyes and angular faces of most manga and more like the work of Western artists. But the action fits right in with a lot of manga, with plenty of speed lines and dynamic angles that emphasize the visceral brutality of Hyaku’s fast-moving, quick-slashing attacks. It’s lovely work that leaps right off the page.

Also striking is Kaneko’s depiction of Hyaku, who seems almost animalistic in her quest for vengeance. In early scenes, she is wearing what seems to be an animal skin, and people she passes comment on how bad she smells. When she leaps into action, she does so with a furious purpose, exhibiting violence and rage as she tries to get revenge for the horrific mutilation she has experienced. Her emo hairstyle emphasizes a punk, mad-at-the-world sensibility, and it seems like that’s unlikely to change even as she manages to recover some of what has been taken from her.

This is a pretty cool comic, full of exciting moments and great world-building. I haven’t read any of Kaneko’s other work (his most famous is probably Bambi and Her Pink Gun), but he’s good enough here that I may need to get my hands on some of those comics. I know I’ll be waiting expectantly for volume 2 of this series, which can’t come out soon enough.