As a longtime manga reader, just the opportunity to read a manga collection that includes earlier work of a manga artist, is typically rare. And for any fans of Kazue Kato or even a fan of his popular “Blue Exorcist” series will no doubt find this collection to be worth owning. “Time Killers: Kazue Kato Short Story Collection” is recommended!
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MANGA TITLE: Time Killers: Kazue Kato Short Story Collection
STORY AND ART BY: Kazue Kato
FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: N/A
PUBLISHED IN USA BY: VIZ Media
RATED: T for Older Teen
RELEASE DATE: September 2, 2014
Explore realms of imagination in this collection of short stories by Kazue Kato, creator of Blue Exorcist! Time Killers includes Kato’s first work, Boku to Usagi (Rabbit and I) and features the stories and character designs that would become Blue Exorcist.
Like many manga artists, “Ao no Exorcist” (Blue Exorcist) manga artist Kazue Kato started off creating their own creations in hopes their short stories would eventually give them their big break with a publisher.
With the release of “Time Killers: Kazue Kato Short Story Collection”, the collection features a plethora of stories created by Kazue Kato and a few short stories that make you feel that they should have received a series.
For “The Rabbit and Me”, the story revolves around a young assassin named Shuri Todo, who is sent to kill a corrupt doctor. Meanwhile at school, a boy named Taira Futamura, a good-natured boy is insistent of becoming friends with Shuri and hoping he can change the bad boy and make him good. But what happens when Shuri finds out that the doctor he is planning to kill, is the father of Taira.
For the story “Tomato”, this revolves around a boy named Sasuke and a rabbit named Usakichi, who arrive at a tomato farm. But the two are hired by a rabbit to be the bodyguards as thugs want her farming land quite desperately, and will do anything to get it.
And possibly two stories that would eventually have a style that would lead to a similar character design for “Blue Exorcist” would be “Astronerd”, a story about aliens attacking the world but first they kill off humanity, they must keep a human sample from Earth and the person they want is Yoshio Fujiko.
The other story would be “The Miyama-Uguisu Mansion Incident”, which is the biggest inspiration to the “Blue Exorcist” storyline in which a Knight of the Knights of the Blue Cross is sent to a home to extinguish a demon.
The book would also feature more stories that are fascinating and quite enjoyable to read.
“Time Killers: Kazue Kato Short Story Collection” is a wonderful collection of random short stories from mangaka Kazue Kato.
As every manga artist have created short stories in their hopes of receiving their work published, Kazue Kato is in a unique position because of the popularity of “Ao no Exorcist”, with this collection, we can see the gorgeous artwork and see how his character designs and overall artwork evolved.
The stories are so enjoyable, one can wish that Kato was given a chance to work on the series, especially for titles such as “The Rabbit and Me”, “Tomato” and also “Astronerd”. But of course, the purpose of the collection was to show readers of the progression of his manga work but how it would later influence the creation of “Ao no Exorcist”.
But as a longtime manga reader, just the opportunity to read a manga collection that includes earlier work of a manga artist, is typically rare. And for any fans of Kazue Kato or even a fan of his popular “Blue Exorcist” series will no doubt find this collection to be worth owning.
“Time Killers: Kazue Kato Short Story Collection” is recommended!