Tags:manga, speed grapher, studio gonzo, tokyopop, tomozo, yusuke kozaki
Rating: 
The world of Speed Grapher isn’t entirely unfamiliar. In the near future, Japan is floating on another awesome economic bubble. This influx of money makes the rich richer. Everyone knows rich people get bored easily (just watch soap operas!) and as a result of this economic upswing Tokyo has become a morass of depravity, similar to popular depictions of Weimar Berlin.
Saiga is a former war photographer who, after being injured in the Middle East, returned to Tokyo. These days he works as a freelancer for weekly magazines. When we first meet Saiga, he is in the process of being beaten up by hired thugs. It seems he has some incriminating pictures of a dirty politician (this is a smart move; a social crusader is a lot more likable than a paparazzi). Saiga narrowly escapes with his life. When the story about the crooked politician hits the papers, Saiga goes to the man’s apartment to get some reaction shots. But what he finds are the hired thugs, quite dead, and the politician, also quite dead. Saiga is attacked by the presumed murderer, a guy dressed like an S & M bottom who body appears to be made entirely of rubber. Saiga makes another narrow escape by apparently killing the attacker.
Meanwhile, in an apparently unrelated (but of course it’s not) storyline, a fragile teenager named Kagura wakes from horrible dreams of carnage. She’s the wealthy daughter of a crime family, but, as comments from her mother and bodyguard make clear, Kagura is far more than she seems. And she’s being used.
Saia’s investigation into the rubber man takes him to an exclusive club. Here, night after night, an unconscious Kagura exercises her secret power to give men their deepest desire- or to kill them. Saiga is recognized as an intruder and given to Kagura to kill, but she doesn’t- she grants his deepest desire instead. And apparently Saiga’s deepest desire is to make people’s heads explode when he takes their pictures.
