The Super Harsh Story of a Mangaka

Nawoki Karasawa is one of the longer-active and more prestigious names in the typically small time, lesser-known world of gag manga. In a genre where art skill is second to just about everything else, Karasawa's dialogue is hilariously sharp and witty. A gag parody of Shinji Nagashima's immortal Mangaka Zankoku Monogatari (Karasawa's title only differs by adding "Chou" (Super) to "Zankoku"), a manga about the dreams, ambitions, and suffering of a group of bright young mangaka. Karasawa brilliantly takes the piss out of just about everything involved with being a mangaka. It's lewd, raunchy, endlessly cynical and laugh-out-loud funny. Originally published in Ikki and the Big Comic Spirits special issue "Casual" from 2000 to 2003, it was collected into a single book in 2005.