Staff Picks (August): Ninja Slayer — Machine of Vengeance Volume 1

Yakuza, Ninja Yakuza, and a Ninja Slayer! In Neo-Saitama the city is bright, cheap, and dingy. It's your quintessential futuristic sci-fi city, where crime lords rule the streets and the general public are just mindless sheep moving through their monotonous daily lives with no drive. Among the turf wars of the groups like the Yokohama Ropeway Klan—a group of thugs with baseball bats and no regard—and the "Family" Yakuza, who employ syngenetic genotype ninja clones from Yoroshisan Pharmaceuticals, there is one true ninja who is on a mission to get rid of them all. He is the Ninja Slayer: Machine of Vengeance and he means business.

The latest project from the team that brought us Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gurren Lagaan, and now Kill La Kill, Ninja Slayer is everything that we would come to expect from such a solid pedigree. From page one you are thrust into an intense action sequence and it only gets crazier from there. This ninja is out to kill and he does just that without slowing down one bit.

For fans of any of the above series, but also the old video game Shinobi (and even Mortal Kombat) and the Comics One manga Wild 7 or Tokyopop's classic Shotaro Ishinomori series Skullman, Ninja Slayer is absolutely for you and I couldn't recommend it enough. I look forward to seeing where it goes and follow the journey of this lone ninja whose sole goal is to clean up the streets of Japan! 

—Caitlin McCabe

Publisher: Vertical Comics Item Code: AUG151799 Release Date: 10/21/15 SRP: $12.95