EXCLUSIVE: Preview Atsushi Kaneko's Search and Destroy, Reimagining of Dororo Manga

Fantagraphics debuted the award-nominated Search and Destroy manga on Tuesday, and Anime News Network can exclusively share a four-page preview.

Atsushi Kaneko (Bambi and her Pink Gun, SOIL, Wet Moon) began serializing his Search and Destroy manga in Micro Magazine Publishing Company's TezuComi magazine in October 2018. The story reimagines Tezuka's iconic Dororo manga. The cyberpunk thriller was recently nominated for the first American Manga Awards. Manga letterer Phil Christie is nominated for his lettering and retouch work on volume 1.

Mangasplaining began serializing the manga in the Mangasplaining Extra (MSX) newsletter last August.

This is a tale of rage. Rage against hypocrisy, injustice, exploitation, and the wrongs done to a child who grew into a righteous killer….Complete in three volumes, Search and Destroy transplants the vengeful action of Dororo from feudal Japan into a dystopian future where mercenary robots known as "creatures" serve the human elite and victimize the city's scrabbling, desperate masses. The violent death of one of these creatures connects an orphaned thief named Doro with a mysterious girl in a stinking animal hide that conceals deadly cybernetic implants. Who is this mysterious girl? How is she killing, one by one, the city's most twisted and powerful creatures? And why is she so angry?

Beyond inspiring Search and Destroy, Tezuka's 1967 manga series was adapted into a black-and-white anime series by Mushi Productions in 1969, a live-action film in 2007, and an animated remake in 2019. Vertical Inc.'s release of the original manga series earned the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan award at the 2009 Eisner Awards.