Manga Monday: Clamp’s Legal Drug Omnibus Hits Stores September 10!

09/08/2014 9:32am
Our director of Asian Licensing, Michael Gombos, mentioned that a few years back, pharmacy was considered a fashionable profession for young people in Japan. Maybe that cachet lies behind the setting of our latest CLAMP manga, Legal Drug. It centers around the fictitious Green Drugstore in the Shimokitazawa—Shimokita, as it’s known—district of Setagaya City in Tokyo. The neighborhood is a little bit like (forgive me) a Portland neighborhood, rather than the high glamor of Tokyo seen in CLAMP’s earlier boys’ love classic, Tokyo Babylon.
Well, I said boys’ love, but Legal Drug’s protagonists, Kazahaya Kudo and Rikuo Himura, have a lot of work before they even get to “like.”  Work, in the relationship sense, as Rikuo is looming, sullen, and sarcastic, whereas Kazahaya is cute, naïve, and easily flustered. And work in the j-o-b sense, as both of them hold down positions stocking shelves at the Green Drugstore, run by pharmacist Kakei (somehow too pretty to be a pharmacist, thinks Kazahaya) and his semi-comatose boyfriend Saiga, who, I am happy to say, looks like a refugee from Banana Fish.
As you might guess, there’s far more mysterious business going on at the Green Drugstore than filling bottles. Kakei is a seer, and Saiga is a man who knows how to find out secrets. Except neither one of them can fully solve the mysteries around Kazahaya and Rikuo, both of whom are haunted by visions of young women from their past. And the real job Kakei hired them to do starts after working hours, as Kazahaya and Rikuo get sent out onto odd, occult assignments where their own psychic gifts come into play, and where each mission might bring a clue towards unlocking the truth that links them both!
Dark Horse has released omnibus editions of classic CLAMP manga before, as well as new, contemporary manga by CLAMP, but Legal Drug is the first time we’ll get to combine the two formats, as Legal Drug is the prequel to Drug & Drop, currently running in Japan in Young Ace magazine (where it’s the neighbor of MPD Psycho and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service!). You won’t have to wait long to continue the story—Drug & Drop vol. 1 is out from Dark Horse early next year, on January 7, 2015! 
—Carl Horn
Manga Editor
Our director of Asian Licensing, Michael Gombos, mentioned that a few years back, pharmacy was considered a fashionable profession for young people in Japan. Maybe that cachet lies behind the setting of our latest CLAMP manga, Legal Drug. It centers around the fictitious Green Drugstore in the Shimokitazawa—Shimokita, as it’s known—district of Setagaya City in Tokyo. The neighborhood is a little bit like (forgive me) a Portland neighborhood, rather than the high glamor of Tokyo seen in CLAMP’s earlier boys’ love classic, Tokyo Babylon.

Well, I said boys’ love, but Legal Drug’s protagonists, Kazahaya Kudo and Rikuo Himura, have a lot of work before they even get to “like.”  Work, in the relationship sense, as Rikuo is looming, sullen, and sarcastic, whereas Kazahaya is cute, naïve, and easily flustered. And work in the j-o-b sense, as both of them hold down positions stocking shelves at the Green Drugstore, run by pharmacist Kakei (somehow too pretty to be a pharmacist, thinks Kazahaya) and his semi-comatose boyfriend Saiga, who, I am happy to say, looks like a refugee from Banana Fish.

As you might guess, there’s far more mysterious business going on at the Green Drugstore than filling bottles. Kakei is a seer, and Saiga is a man who knows how to find out secrets. Except neither one of them can fully solve the mysteries around Kazahaya and Rikuo, both of whom are haunted by visions of young women from their past. And the real job Kakei hired them to do starts after working hours, as Kazahaya and Rikuo get sent out onto odd, occult assignments where their own psychic gifts come into play, and where each mission might bring a clue towards unlocking the truth that links them both!

Dark Horse has released omnibus editions of classic CLAMP manga before, as well as new, contemporary manga by CLAMP, but Legal Drug is the first time we’ll get to combine the two formats, as Legal Drug is the prequel to Drug & Drop, currently running in Japan in Young Ace magazine (where it’s the neighbor of MPD Psycho and The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service!). You won’t have to wait long to continue the story—Drug & Drop vol. 1 is out from Dark Horse early next year, on January 7, 2015!
 
—Carl Horn
Manga Editor

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manga dark horse comics legal clamp monday Drug
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