Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 7

by Motoro Mase, 232 pages

Fujimoto admits to himself that his faith in the National Welfare system has been shaken, though he's willing to be reconciled to it, given the chance. But as internal affairs inspectors begin to "observe" department staff on the job and conduct "thought exams" in the wake of the Kubo incident, he finds it harder and harder to accept the system as it is and keep his niggling doubts under wraps. As he dutifully delivers two more ikigami, the pressure from the exacting inspector mounts and puts Fujimoto's already frayed nerves to the test.

This time around, one of the unfortunate recipients is a talented photographer torn between the time-consuming art of analogue and the business-friendly convenience of digital photography. The other is a gifted dancer who loses site of his dreams under the weight of parental expectations. Both young men struggle in the gap between generations, only finding the right balance when fate gives them no other choice but to act or be idle.

Once again, I've sniffled my way through one of these. I don't want Fujimoto to get in trouble, but I don't know how else he (or the status quo) is going to change. As much as he'd like to believe in the system, I don't see him able to be the National Welfare cheerleader the scary inspector wants. Happily, he's finally as aware of this as the reader. The series so far has pretty much kept to a structure of two ikigami deliveries and a glimpse of Fujimoto's stubborn but subtly shifting mindset. It works, but the deeper in we get, the more I'd like to see the bigger picture, as well. I can only hope that the sudden scrutiny on the department is a reaction to increased instability in the system, but as we're usually (but not always) limited to the Chosen's and Fujimoto's perspectives, it's hard to know what's going on elsewhere in the government or in the hearts and minds of the people.

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 6

by Motoro Mase, 232 pages

Fujimoto lives with his decision regarding Dr. Kubo, but he is not at ease. As he turns the consequences over and over in his mind, he goes about his job and delivers two more ikigami.

One is for a young man with no fixed address, no family who actually care about him, and no prospects for lifting himself out of his sorry lot. Until he gets his ikigami. The death papers act as free passes for services at participating businesses. After all, it's the least society can do to honor the sacrifice of the chosen. That means a free bath, free clothes, free food. But what good does a lavish last meal serve someone whose stomach is contracted by lifelong poverty? If National Welfare can't help him, then who can it help?

The other ikigami goes to a former journalist's son who resents his once-brave father's capitulation to the silencing force of the powers that be. In retaliation, he has taken up the fallen standard of truth and immersed himself in the underground anti-establishment movement. When he receives his ikigami, all that bitterness and anger overflows and he strikes out at the closest target representative of the cause of all his misery....

The dénouement of this volume is as significant as the climax. Fujimoto gets more of an education in what it does and does not mean to be a "social miscreant" than he has in all the time he's been faithfully carrying out his duties. When he can't adjust his point of view on his own, the ground moves beneath his feet and forces a change in his perspective. What does he see from that new vantage point? The same world of black and white? Only time will tell.

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 5

by Motoro Mase, 232 pages

This volume's chosen are a young artist who gave up his dream to support the family business and an insecure high school senior who is a National Welfare zealot. With his remaining time, the first chooses to protect his imperfect family's future and still go out with an anonymous, scathing indictment of National Welfare--the government can paint over it, but they can't make people un-see it. The second unintentionally leaves his otherwise authority-trusting classmates the legacy of doubt by showing what can happen when an idea is taken too far by an individual or by a country.

What defines a social miscreant? When should you report a suspected one? How do you know if you are one, yourself? And what do you do when the woman you trust and confide in and are developing feelings for proudly tells you that she is one--and that she believes you are, too?

Mase continues to impress with his moving depictions of unique personalities under the ultimate pressure. The artist's final act of graffiti is disturbing and rousing and unmistakable in its meaning. The zealot's breakdown and subsequent influence on his once complacent classmates take the reader on an emotional rollercoaster. And all the while Fujimoto struggles to understand what he believes...and whom.

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 4

by Motoro Mase, 232 pages

This volume's abbreviated lives belong to a sincere junior high teacher who, despite being the victim of a student-instigated smear campaign, never loses his faith in the innocence of children, and to a hard-working former teen mother who's trying to keep her small family afloat despite her young daughter's asthma and her car junky husband's fiscal irresponsibility. As he watches their fates unfold, Fujimoto finds more frustration than satisfaction in his work. And he's also clearly falling for kind Dr. Kubo. But if he knew what the reader has just learned, would he run the other way? Or rush in headfirst?

Dude! I cried twice, as expected, and then my eyes popped in "oooooh..." as a new plotline was revealed. Has the first step toward revolution been made? I don't know! But I'm gonna find out!

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 3

by Motoro Mase, 216 pages

Fujimoto delivers ikigami to the neglected, unloved son of a career politician running on a platform touting the benefits of Social Welfare (and who doesn't flinch at using her just condemned son as a mouthpiece for her campaign) and to the delinquent, indebted, yet devoted brother of a girl blinded in a car accident that killed their parents when they were children. As a result, the Welfare Police have an incident to hush up and Fujimoto gets reprimanded for bending some rules to fulfill a dying man's loving wish.

Ack. More crying. But I have another box of tissues in the bathroom closest, so I'm good. *thumbs up*

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 2

by Motoro Mase, 218 pages

Unable to deal with his work-related mood swings, Fujimoto's girlfriend dumps him over lunch. Hurt by her inability to understand what he's going through, he warns her to take care in her criticism of his job, as it could be taken as criticism of the system, which could get her killed. After this chilling and depressing encounter, he pulls himself together and delivers ikigami to the devoted girlfriend of a stressed-out, drug-addicted director-to-be and to a clumsy, kind, earnest nursing-home worker who's just gotten a grief-stricken resident to talk and remember that her legs still work. Although the reader is privy to more of the private lives and reactions of the recipients than is Fujimoto, he's not blind, either, and every interaction touches him, however subtly. In the process, the newly single Fujimoto finds himself impressed with a new therapist brought in to help comfort those about to die.

I think I'm pretty much guaranteed at least two bouts of tears per volume of this series. It's moving and sinister and human. And something is up with the pretty new shrink....

Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit: Volume 1

by Motoro Mase, 212 pages

Concerned that its post-war society is falling into a pattern of dissolution that might undermine the country's integrity, the national government institutes a program to inspire citizens to appreciate life and live it to its fullest by being happy, law-abiding, productive citizens. And what better way to encourage people to live like it's their last day than to threaten them with that very possibility?

Following the adoption of the National Welfare Act, all children are immunized upon enrollment in the first grade. But one syringe out of every thousand contains a pre-programmed nano-capsule that will settle harmlessly in the vaccinated individual's pulmonary artery until--at a predetermined date and time when the individual is between the ages of 18 and 24--it ruptures and kills them. The identity of these lucky individuals is kept strictly secret until 24 hours before their scheduled death, when a government representative delivers their "death paper," or ikigami, informing them that they've been chosen for the honor of dying for their country and giving them time to get their affairs in order and decide what to do with their final hours.

Fujimoto works for the Musashigawa Ward Office as a messenger. Having lived past the age of 24, he's safe from receiving the ikigami he delivers to the citizenry. But that doesn't mean he's safe from a death sentence, as public dissent can brand one a "social miscreant," which can only end badly. Fujimoto does his best to take his job seriously and balance his compassion for the condemned with his duty to his country, but finds himself internally questioning the system's purported merits.

In this first volume, rookie Fujimoto delivers ikigami to a young man traumatized by years of bullying at school and to a former street musician about to make his debut on live radio. The two deal with their suddenly truncated futures very differently. And I cried for them both.

If you don't mind a story that makes you angry and leaves you itching to take up arms against the oppressor, then this series is for you. Although this very flawed social experiment would never be tolerated in reality (at least, we hope not), Mase does so well showing the point of view of the trusting citizenry and civil servants that you can see how they might find something to validate its existence, even as their confidence in it is undermined. For every dignified, honorable acceptance of death as civic duty, there's a horrible, tooth-and-nail fight against it. You know it's wrong and you wait anxiously for Fujimoto and the populace to realize it before you, too, are brainwashed into acceptance.