Japan Man

Freesia is a manga created by Jiro Matsumoto about the a world so fucked by war and violence that it needs special revenge ops in order to uphold the law. Wikipedia fucks up the translation by saying Vengeance Proxy Enforcer firms (the people who write on wikipedia are tools).  Vengeance sounds way too self righteous for the subject matter of this manga. Special Revenge Ops is more appropriate because the revenge laws are usually broken intentionally or totally ignored by both the revenge ops sweepers and their targets. Basically, you can think of Freesia as a technologically watered down version of Ghost in a Shell with way more rapes, brooding, and horrific violence.

The main character of Freesia is Kano Hiroshi (the dude in the picture above) He looks like any regular guy but he is really a former nut job black ops assassin. Little is known about his past so you don’t even know if that is true. He is constantly talking to himself and seeing illusions that he thinks are real. Kano can camouflage himself by becoming invisible anywhere. He can also create illusions of himself to use as a decoy. His gun aim is highly accurate. And he almost never gets excited during the missions unlike his partners.

Kano is recruited into the Special Revenge Ops by a woman named Higuchi. Kano is suspicious of Higuchi’s motives because of a secret from their past that they both share……Mizoguchi is a burnt out veteran ops sweeper who thinks he has to hunt everyone and everything that invades his territory. He is a wife beater and schemes on killing Kano. Yamada Ichiro is a rookie sweeper who failed the revenge ops test 3 times before he finally passed. At first he is optimistic about making a change in the world but as the story progresses he gets increasingly jaded, violent, and careless.

I like Freesia because it just doesn’t give a fuck. Women are constantly getting raped or about to get raped. The revenge laws never work right usually causing the deaths of both decent and innocent people. All of the revenge sweepers besides Kano (he’s just crazy) are bent, burnt out, or plain evil. When you read Freesia you are always wondering which will collapse first, the world or Kano’s mind. Considering how totally crappy the world is portrayed I’m betting on the former…..What do you think of Freesia? Do you like it and if so why?