Reading via an online reader copy is sometimes hard for me. But I persevere and just keep swimming, I mean reading. But with Stray there was the added issue of a big ol’ “watermark” in the middle of things. Nope, they did not want people copying the manga comic by Ryu Kamio and illustrator Nakamura Yuu. Plus, it is manga and therefore, the flow is off for my western eyes to start. With that said, a few days after starting, I finished this Yakuza meets coming of age story with satisfaction.
This is a familiar story of gangs and honor. It has a few layers, but overall we know the story of “old world” vs the “new world” that is unfolding. We know political corruption and having a precocious kid and their mentor/guardian/friend/big brother. The idea of an unlikely alliance is not new, but Kamio makes it fun to read with a different setting for Western readers. In Stray we have a 9-year-old girl and a recently paroled con take on Japan’s underworld, while trying to find the secrets the girl’s parents left for her to find. I liked that while, yes there is violence, for the most part things are a lot tamer than they could have been (even in “mild” manga I have found it gets rough). But there are guns, killings and car accidents, but the blood is minimal to probably less than you’d see in a modern movie. And perhaps the worst thing you see is a few bodies with cuts and bruises, and once or twice a character has been tied up and gagged when they were kidnapped.
Format of things are in the traditional manga look, feel and story flow. It is not going to overly surprise you with how things go, but it feels like it is a one deal story and there won’t be sequels, which was surprising to me. Sure I would like to know what happens to a few people but overall I want to think that those who matter survived the crazy world happily ever after and I don’t want that to change.
Included in my online reader was a bonus story. It looks like it is part of Kamio’s Last Inning series. I did not read it during my initial reading, but since it is due in December 2025, I can go back and finish it at some point. While the themes are different I was thinking that Stray reminded me of Asadora by Naoki Urasawa. Mostly this is because the girls are equally motivated and the manga illustrations are similar looking. And, even though one is realistic, I do think readers will enjoy both