Abstract

Litchi Hikari Club is considered Usamaru Furuya's breakthrough work. Originally designed as an experiemental project Litchi's themes of youthful rebellion and deus ex machina destruction, and attractive designs eventually won over a new generation of readers and critics, leading the way for Furuya to take on his many recent high profile properties.

In an abandoned warehouse, a band of nine students have assembled to plot out a new future. Their "leader" Zera is determined to cleanse his community of the ugly and cowardly. Having taken command of a band of young men to build him a god-like machine capable of changing the world. This machine, named "Litchi" will give them what they've been searching for...a beauty of the finest quality.

A surreal yet touching horror comedy Furuya's Litchi Hikari Club that mixes elements of French Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol and with modern day pop culture tropes and is set in modern day Tokyo. Shocking, sexy and innovative, the Litchi Hikari Club is at the pinnacle of modern day Japanese seinen manga (young adult comics).

Author’s Information

Usamaru Furuya was born in Tokyo, Japan on January 25th, 1968. A graduate of the Tama Arts University, with a focus on oil painting, Furuya is currently considered one of the most talented artists in the industry today. A former student in the Osamu Tezuka Manga Correspondance Program, Furuya's drawings as a teen were often published in the pages of the seminal boys comics magazine Shounen King.

Upon entering high school, Furuya began to embrace his darkside experimenting with subculture and the undergroud art scene. An early participant in the Tokyo version of the Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, he started off with them creating puppets and set designs for their elaborate performances. After graduating from university, Usamaru turned his attention to the world of comics. His early projects combined the surreal with extremely modern political commentary winning him critical acclaim worldwide for his juxtapositions of Tokyo youth and their suit wearing salaryman counterparts. Since his debut in 1994, Furuya has gone to draw 16 titles for Japan's leading comics publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha (publishers of Shonen Jump).