R to L (Japanese Style). Soichi Negishi dreamed of moving to Tokyo and starting up a bubblegum pop band, so what's he doing playing in Detroit Metal City, the most scandalous, outrageous and demonic death metal band on the Japanese music scene? Deep down inside, Soichi still dreams of acoustic guitars and trips to Paris, but when the makeup comes on and he transforms into his alter ego, Krauser II, not even the denizens of hell itself are safe from his soul-devouring heavy metal sound.By all accounts, Soichi Negishi is the last person on earth anyone would expect to be the front man for a death metal band: a meek little loser who's still a virgin and wants nothing more than to sing fluffy pop ballads in trendy neighborhoods. Can he reconcile his sensitive inner yearnings with his on-stage persona, Krauser II, the vilest hard rocker in Japanese (and possibly world) history?

"Soichi Negishi is a sweet, kind of 'soft' young man who loves the bubblegum sounds of Swedish pop music and dreams of creating such treacly tunes himself. But in order to keep a roof over his head, he rocks out hard as the gaudy/ridiculous Lord Krauser II, a demonically styled death metal guitarist and singer whose looks owe an immeasurable debt to both Gene Simmons of Kiss and Danish satanic rocker King Diamond. Fronting the band Detroit Metal City, Soichi sees the group's popularity soar, but he loathes the unpleasantness of his stage persona and seeks to keep his real vocation from his friends and family while fruitlessly attempting to inject some of his own tender sensibilities into DMC's music, an aspiration that scores no points with DMC's manager (who gauges the merits of the band's songs by how much their lyrics sexually excite her). The art in this manga is no great shakes, but it's kind of beside the point since the real star is the dry yet very funny script that utterly skewers the nihilistic excesses of the death metal genre. It's a hilarious satire that, luckily, hasn't been lost in the translation. (June)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)