Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1341431 in Books
• Published on: 1996-03-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Customer Reviews

Good artwork, shoddy storyline
The artwork, done by veteran Ryoichi Ikegami, is beautiful. Nearly realistic while being stylized, it gives the manga its own unique look.

Sadly, the story part doesn't do so well.

So the concept is good: a man is brainwashed by Chinese mafia to do their dirty work but is always conscious of what he's doing...hence "crying freeman." But its not really portrayed well here. He has to go kill a woman, and she says, "Wait before you kill me I don't want to die a virgin!"

Yeah...right. I smell and excuse for sex. And you get it.

As it boils down to flashbacks, what do we get? More sex. I'm not kidding. Every other page has a woman either receiving it or getting raped. Its just...stupid. I began to wonder if I was reading actual manga or a hentai title.

You could call it "adult." I call it "dumb."

Portrait of a Killer: Crying Freeman
Most excellent book. Every page is a must to turn, you are held captive by the story. This is a great book.

The Portrait of a Killer
The Crying Freeman is an assassin. The best ever. But, that wasn't the way it used to be.

He was once called Yo Hinomura, a well-established, peace loving Japanese potter with a reputation known the world over. That is until one fateful day when a marked-for-death photographer, who is a material witness to a gangland murder unintentionally dumps a film evidence into one of Mr. Yo's pots during an exhibition in New York. When Yo stumbles upon the film, he becomes the next target of the 108 Dragons--A Chinese Mafia known throughout the free world as the top dealer in narcotics. From that fateful day onwards, Yo's freedom was turned into myth as the Chinese Mafia threatened to kill him if he revealed the contents of the film to the police. When Yo was abducted, instead of being killed, the 108 Dragons transformed--hypnotized--him into the Crying Freeman, a dragon tattooed assassin who weeps each time he kills.

This book is the first volume of the Crying Freeman series wherein readers are introduced to the world of Chinese and Japanese organized crime, its deadliness as well as its small glories. In this first huge installment, we see the portrait of an assassin who weeps each time he takes away a life. But does his being a killer make him evil? That is the question that dominates the entirety of the book as the Freeman falls helplessly in love with a Japanese woman named Emu Hino, who is both fascinated and mesmerized with the character of Yo. And from that fateful encounter, the book muddles the thin line between good and evil as we see the plight of Yo/Freeman as he tries to protect the woman he loves dearly and serve the "family" that demands nothing but utmost loyalty from their best hitman, disregarding everything else including his right to love.

Written by Kazuo Koike (Lone Wolf and Cub) and pencilled by Ryoichi Ikegami (Sanctuary), this book is the result of their well-founded collaboration on Japanese manga crime stories that blows the mind away. Wherever they may be, kudos to both of them.

So if you're looking for a great adult manga crime yarn that tops all else, look no further than the Crying Freeman. It has all the elements of action and drama that would make you want for more. The book contains mind-crushing violence, three-dimensional characters, and steamy love making scenes that would just make your jaw drop in their stark and complex beauty.

Finally, does the portrait of a killer reveal what evil is like? I think it all depends on the one who looks at what's inside...