Come, the incantation sing,
Frantic all and maddening,
To the heart a brand of fire,
The Furies’ hymn,
That which claims the senses dim,
Tuneless to the gentle lyre,
Withering the soul within.

– “The Song of the Furies,” from The Eumenides, by Aeschylus.

Search and Destroy is, simply put, a science fiction re-telling of Tezuka Osamu’s manga Dororo, the tale of a young man whose father bartered his son’s human parts for power in feudal Japan. In Search and Destroy, Volume 1 the young person in question is Hyaku, a girl whose body is ravaged by cybernetic beings known as “creech” (i.e., “creatures.”) who were formerly humanity’s enemy, but have now forged a tentative peace with humans. That peace covers a myriad of horrors with each side still set on control over the other, but it has resolved into crime and politics, rather than outright war.

As in Tezuka’s original Dororo is a gutter-dwelling child who survives by stealing what she can, when she can. On the run from the law, she encounters a foul-smelling person(?) creature(?) who quite incidentally saves her. Over and over Dororo and Hyaku encounter one another, as Hyaku seems to be targeting specific powerful creech’s in order to reclaim her human parts.

This manga, by Atsushi Kaneko, is a grim, finely detailed look at the underside of human society in the future. Kaneko’s art is extraordinarily detailed, and can be very beautiful, but his work tends to highlight the grime beneath the glitz. We are constantly given views of human, animal and creech parts ripped open to be seen as  kind of clinical specimen. They are drawn with equivalence, showing a metallic” spine” or “bones” with exactly the same emotional weight as a humans’. And yet, when human parts are removed from creech parts, it feels more like a release than a removal.

The story is taught with anger, violence, disability, social inequality and the specific kind of social unawareness we cultivate as humans so as to not have to “see” the unfortunate around us. And yet, we can’t help but watch as Hyaku’s rage carries her along her path to regain herself, piece by piece. 

I could not put this manga down when I picked it up…even knowing what it would bring me. Of course I am familiar with Tezuka’s manga, but I also had subscribed to Mangasplaining Extra for a long while, as I strongly support the work of the folks at Mangasplaining. I v when Substack decided that Nazi money was worth more than people’s safety, but I am still in support of the work the Mangasplaining team is doing. Okinawa  by Susumu Higa was an amazing license that I immediately donated to my local library.

Search and Destroy is not light reading. But if you too are raging at the inequity of society and looking for a force for vengeance to attach one’s self to, as Dororo does to Hyaku, this is a very good manga.

Ratings:

Art – 9 It is grim and complicated, but beautifully detailed
Story – 9 Same
Characters – Same
Service – Yes, but less T&A and more in the “emotionally torturing humans for pleasure” sense

Overall – 9

In 2024, what woman is able to read a book like this and not feel the rage Hyaku feels at having herself carved up and sold off in pieces as a commodity? Not me, for sure. I spent every page singing songs to the Furies asking for vengeance over those who demand control over women’s bodies.

Many thanks to Fantagraphics for the review copy.