Candy & Cigarettes
Candy & Cigarettes is a series from Inoue Tomonori the same author as "COPPELION" (a more popular but somewhat problematic (as I've heard) series). We follow the story of Raizou Hiraga, a retired officer from the Tokyo MPD. shortly after being introduced to him, we are introduced to his grandson, which is hospitalized with a somewhat unknown illness that requires an expensive treatment that neither Raizou's daughters or he himself can pay. Pondering around the city, he finds a flier for a job that pays a million yens monthly (which is roughly 8k USD today), which happens to be what he need for the treatment of his grandson. However, the so called "SS Agency" has some weird requisites "Kendo 7-dan or above, Judo 5-dan or above, Expert gun-
-handling". Regardless he applies for the job on this weird secondhand book store with his 11 years old partner. The next day he finds out he will be helping cleaning a lot of crime scenes. As the author describes it "An immoral crime action manga".
The story isn't perfect but it really tries to stay consistent to it's rules and ideas and doesn't wonder off to unrelated side stories. The characters also feel very consistent with their actions and motives, pretty much everything feel right to the world they lay down, the setting has some stereotypes that kind of make sense if I'm being honest (we joke a lot about them in this group as well). I'm happy with how the story ended.
This is now one of my favorite mangas. 10/10
I'm also going to be starting a backlog for 2024 and I'll try to write more complex things about the mangas I read.
"You don't need math for murder" - Miharu S.
