--- product_id: 277971613 title: "Mw" price: "€ 64.61" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 5 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/277971613-mw store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # Unique Kabuki-inspired disguise Classic cult manga Intricate psychological thriller Mw **Price:** € 64.61 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Summary > 📖 Unlock the dark genius of Tezuka — where every page dares you to look deeper. ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Mw - **How much does it cost?** € 64.61 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/277971613-mw) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Key Features - • **Dive into a cult classic:** Osamu Tezuka’s rare, darker masterpiece that defies his usual style. - • **Iconic psychological depth:** Explore the twisted mind of Michio Yuki, a sociopath with a deadly secret. - • **Complex, gripping narrative:** A chilling tale blending political intrigue, moral ambiguity, and taboo themes. - • **Highly rated & genre-defining:** Ranked top 400 in Horror and Sci-Fi Manga with a 4.6-star rating from 261 reviews. - • **Collector’s gem in good condition:** A used book that retains quality for manga aficionados and serious collectors alike. ## Overview MW is a rare, used manga by Osamu Tezuka that breaks from his typical style to deliver a dark, psychological thriller. Set against a backdrop of political corruption and moral decay, it follows Michio Yuki, a sociopath with a deadly secret linked to a military cover-up. Praised for its complex narrative and mature themes, MW remains a cult classic with a strong fanbase and high ratings, making it a must-have for discerning manga collectors and fans of sophisticated graphic novels. ## Description Comics god Osamu Tezuka's darkest work, MW is a chilling picaresque of evil. Steering clear of the supernatural as well as the cuddly designs and slapstick humor that enliven many of Tezuka's better-known works, MW explores a stark modern reality where neither divine nor secular justice seems to prevail. This willfully "anti-Tezuka" achievement from the master's own pen nevertheless pulsates with his unique genius. Michio Yuki has it all: looks, intelligence, a pedigree as the scion of a famous Kabuki family, a promising career at a major bank, legions of female admirers. But underneath the sheen of perfection lurks a secret with the power to shake the world to its foundations. During a boyhood excursion to one of the southern archipelagos near Okinawa, Yuki barely survived exposure to a poison gas stored at a foreign military facility. The leakage annihilated all of the island's inhabitants but was promptly covered up by the authorities, leaving Yuki as an unacknowledged witness--one whose sense of right and wrong, however, the potent nerve agent managed to obliterate. Now, fifteen years later, Yuki is a social climber of Balzacian proportions, infiltrating the worlds of finance and politics by day while brutally murdering children and women by night--perversely using his Kabuki-honed skills as a female impersonator to pass himself off as the women he's killed. His drive, however, will not be satiated with a promotion here and a rape there. Michio Yuki has a far more ominous objective: obtaining MW, the ultimate weapon that spared his life but robbed him of all conscience. There are only two men with any hope of stopping him: one, a brilliant public prosecutor who struggles to build a case against the psychopath; the other, a tormented Catholic priest, Iwao Garai, who shares Yuki's past--and frequently his bed. Serialized beginning in 1976 in Big Comic magazine, where Tezuka's trailblazing medical thriller Ode to Kirihito had appeared a few years earlier, MW probes the complexities of homoeroticism as well as the reality of extensive U.S. military presence in Japan. The result is as bracing today as it was thirty years ago. "Darker than you think--than you want to think [...] MW took on the stuff of today's headlines some thirty years ago." --The Agony Column "MW is the newest of those masterpieces to be translated into English, and like everything else with [Tezuka's] name on it, you are cheating yourself out of one of the best graphic novels out right now if you don't read it." --Advanced Media Network "Tezuka spins an entertaining, slightly preposterous yarn, serving up more plot twists, car chases, and gender-bending costume changes than Dressed to Kill and The Manchurian Candidate combined." --popcultureshock "You'll stare at the page, eyes popping and muttering, 'I cannot believe I just read that.' But you did, and it worked, and you turn the page." --David Welsh, Comic World News Review: Rare work - Among Tezuka’s works, MW is different in that it touches upon something dark, dirty and underhanded, but it is a page-turner. MW is my second most favorite after Message to Adolf. Review: "Astro Boy" it ain't...or "Black Jack"...or even "Ode to Kirihito." - This is the story of the two survivors of an "accident." In the early `60s, the United States stashed away on a tiny Japanese island, with Japanese cooperation, of course, some deadly gas (Tezuka calls it "MW,"--hence the title)--we really did---but in Tezuka's manga some leaks out, killing all 800 inhabitants of the island. The survivors, Iwao Garai, 15, and Michio Yuki, 9, are protected from the gas because they are sheltered in a cave. When they come out the next morning, it is to an island of the dead: men, women, children, birds and beasts--every sentient being. The gekiga (a manga for adults, which MW is, in spades) tells us about the rest of their lives, (almost...) beginning 15 years later. We find out about the events on the island in flashbacks. What happened to the rest of the gas? (The cover-up has of course been enormous.) And what will Garai and Yuki (now, respectively, a Catholic priest and a loan executive at a Tokyo bank) do about it? Garai is haunted by his memory of the dead, and Yuki is simply a madman: he inhaled some of the gas, which gives him occasional attacks of bad health, but worse, it warped his brain, robbing him of every speck o conscience, so that he takes great joy in using, kidnapping, torturing and killing people. We find out his reason--just as insane as the acts themselves--in the second third of the manga. Yuki always confesses his crimes to Father Garai, who--and we don't understand why, at first-- never tells on him. Yuki and Garai have (since when?) an uneasy homosexual relationship (Yuki is Tezuka's only true homosexual main character). It's very hard to hate our arch-villain Yuki: he's cute as a button , very smart, has a great sense of humor, and really loves Garai (although he loves nobody else on earth). Garai--until the second part of the manga, when he begins to develop a backbone--is a rather poor creature, although he's a big, handsome fellow, not being able to honestly follow any part of his heart. But it must be difficult to be in love with God and a sociopath at the same time. He lies to his father confessor, the police, Yuki, and himself. Of course Yuki lies to evrybody. There are many fascinating characters in this manga: the reporter to whom Garai finally tells the story of the island, the public prosecuto0r, who has a face like a misshapen dinner plate, but whose brain is in fine order, Yuki's brother, an onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki theater), who looks as much like Yuki as the second pea in a pod. Mistaken identity is common in Kabuki; it occurs here too. Some of Tezuka's best drawing is here--the faces of the dead in the reporter's article, Yuki's disquisition on...Garai's day. There is all you could wish for of political corruption, self-sacrifice, ugly violence, sadness, humor, anger, and occasional very kinky sex (which I have not mentioned). The ending is worthy of the darkest Hitchcock. The translation (from the French I read) is occasionally disappointing, The French is softer in tone, but--is the French, or the English closer to the original Japanese? I don't know. Sometimes the drawing is too stark. (It'a 30 years since the serialization....what are we looking at?) Perhaps ....an "18+"would be more appropriate than a "l6+" as a rating. The sex is not explicit, nor is the plot just an excuse for it, but a few scenes would be shocking to some, and there is the occasional use of the right word in the wrong place at the wrong time (being used to American films, this really surprised me). I wouldn't want to keep anyone from reading it, but more conservative human beings might see the equivalent of an "X"-----and think, "I think I'll sit this one out." ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #136,692 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #358 in Horror Manga #504 in Science Fiction Manga #4,409 in Comics & Graphic Novels for Young Adults | | Customer Reviews | 4.6 out of 5 stars 261 Reviews | ## Images ![Mw - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91IUtocjAIL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rare work *by 9***9 on 4 January 2024* Among Tezuka’s works, MW is different in that it touches upon something dark, dirty and underhanded, but it is a page-turner. MW is my second most favorite after Message to Adolf. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Astro Boy" it ain't...or "Black Jack"...or even "Ode to Kirihito." *by J***R on 30 October 2007* This is the story of the two survivors of an "accident." In the early `60s, the United States stashed away on a tiny Japanese island, with Japanese cooperation, of course, some deadly gas (Tezuka calls it "MW,"--hence the title)--we really did---but in Tezuka's manga some leaks out, killing all 800 inhabitants of the island. The survivors, Iwao Garai, 15, and Michio Yuki, 9, are protected from the gas because they are sheltered in a cave. When they come out the next morning, it is to an island of the dead: men, women, children, birds and beasts--every sentient being. The gekiga (a manga for adults, which MW is, in spades) tells us about the rest of their lives, (almost...) beginning 15 years later. We find out about the events on the island in flashbacks. What happened to the rest of the gas? (The cover-up has of course been enormous.) And what will Garai and Yuki (now, respectively, a Catholic priest and a loan executive at a Tokyo bank) do about it? Garai is haunted by his memory of the dead, and Yuki is simply a madman: he inhaled some of the gas, which gives him occasional attacks of bad health, but worse, it warped his brain, robbing him of every speck o conscience, so that he takes great joy in using, kidnapping, torturing and killing people. We find out his reason--just as insane as the acts themselves--in the second third of the manga. Yuki always confesses his crimes to Father Garai, who--and we don't understand why, at first-- never tells on him. Yuki and Garai have (since when?) an uneasy homosexual relationship (Yuki is Tezuka's only true homosexual main character). It's very hard to hate our arch-villain Yuki: he's cute as a button , very smart, has a great sense of humor, and really loves Garai (although he loves nobody else on earth). Garai--until the second part of the manga, when he begins to develop a backbone--is a rather poor creature, although he's a big, handsome fellow, not being able to honestly follow any part of his heart. But it must be difficult to be in love with God and a sociopath at the same time. He lies to his father confessor, the police, Yuki, and himself. Of course Yuki lies to evrybody. There are many fascinating characters in this manga: the reporter to whom Garai finally tells the story of the island, the public prosecuto0r, who has a face like a misshapen dinner plate, but whose brain is in fine order, Yuki's brother, an onnagata (a man who plays women's parts in Kabuki theater), who looks as much like Yuki as the second pea in a pod. Mistaken identity is common in Kabuki; it occurs here too. Some of Tezuka's best drawing is here--the faces of the dead in the reporter's article, Yuki's disquisition on...Garai's day. There is all you could wish for of political corruption, self-sacrifice, ugly violence, sadness, humor, anger, and occasional very kinky sex (which I have not mentioned). The ending is worthy of the darkest Hitchcock. The translation (from the French I read) is occasionally disappointing, The French is softer in tone, but--is the French, or the English closer to the original Japanese? I don't know. Sometimes the drawing is too stark. (It'a 30 years since the serialization....what are we looking at?) Perhaps ....an "18+"would be more appropriate than a "l6+" as a rating. The sex is not explicit, nor is the plot just an excuse for it, but a few scenes would be shocking to some, and there is the occasional use of the right word in the wrong place at the wrong time (being used to American films, this really surprised me). I wouldn't want to keep anyone from reading it, but more conservative human beings might see the equivalent of an "X"-----and think, "I think I'll sit this one out." ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Buen libro, mal manejo de envío *by O***Z on 13 January 2025* Como siempre, las historias de Osamu Tezuka son muy buenas y esta, que es considera de las mas controversiales, no se ha sido la excepción. Buena edición, buen material y sobre todo bien producida. El único detalle, es que al empacarlo, la persona encargada de hacerlo no lo hizo con el manejo correcto y se daño la portada de forma considerada, he pedido otros libros y nunca me habían llegado con un daño así de notable, espero que se mejore la forma de empaque y envío, para los libros de pasta blanda. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/277971613-mw](https://www.desertcart.be/products/277971613-mw) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-10-07*