Ice Blade is manga series written and illustrated by Tsutomu Takahashi, published in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine from 1992 to 1999. In 2008, it was announced by Monthly Afternoon's October issue that a new Jiraishin series would be in the magazine good! Afternoon and would be known as Jiraishin Diablo, which was serialized in said magazine from 2010 to 2011. The story follows Kyoya Ida, a plainclothes police officer, and his colleagues at the Shinjuku Police Department as they investigate and solve crimes in the Greater Tokyo Area. Sometimes, these crimes are solved with some prices to pay. Later on in Diablo, it portrays Ida and his interactions with various people after his absence from the force due to an eye disease while getting wind of mysterious deaths of villagers living in the fictional Amakura Island in Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture in the year 2008 while assisting a police detective in initially trying to figure out who or what was responsible for their deaths after it was reported back in 2007.
Plot
''Jiraishin: Ice Blade''
Kyoya Ida is a hard-nosed detective from the Shinjuku Police precinct, known to use lethal force to solve cases whenever they need to be solved. He works in a bleak, gritty representation of Shinjuku alongside his partner Tsuyoshi Yamaki in hunting down suspects and arresting them before he was killed in the line of duty. Ida was later assigned to another partner named Eriko Aizawa, the two working together to solve cases pertaining to the city's interests.
''Jirashin Diablo''
In the year 2008, Ida was beginning to suffer from the effects of Keratoconus after leaving the police force. He later gets wind of mysterious deaths of an unknown plague that killed the villagers in Ishikawa Prefecture's Amakura Island when he meets up with Taichi Kogure, a detective of the Ishikawa Police precinct and a now grown up Aya Koike, who is a known information handler in the underworld.
Publication
The manga was serialized in Monthly Afternoon and compiled into 19 volumes published by Kodansha, which started from October 23, 1993 to January 21, 2000 with the first three volumes sold for 509 Yen before the rest were sold for 530 Yen. Reprints came with 10 volumes in bunkoban from May 9, 2003 to September 12, 2003 for 798 Yen with another reprint in aizoban from February 23, 2009 to November 20, 2009 for 1,000 Yen. The North American version of the manga, retitled Ice Blade, was serialized in Tokyopop's MixxZine, but it was discontinued after three volumes. When Jiraishin was serialized as Ice Blade in MixxZine, there were instances of censorships in some of its panels as it was a new magazine when it was released and did not wish to offend potential distributors. For France and French-speaking countries/territories, Génération Comics was the publisher before it was taken over by Panini Comics. For Italy, Stars Comics published all 19 volumes. In Germany and German-speaking countries and territories, Carlsen Comics was the publisher. In South Korea, Samyang Comics published Jiraishin in its entirety. In Taiwan, it was published by Tong Li Comics under the Youth Comic series label. Jiraishin Diablo was serialized in good! Afternoon magazine and compiled in three volumes.
Reception
Cassiel Kelner of Aesthesticism.com praised the manga as a study on human nature, "reminding just what people really are capable of". Serdar Yegulalp of Advanced Media Network compares Jiraishin to 'Miami Vice'' as the "blood, grit, and sin spatter so thickly that it’s a miracle you don’t get your fingers dirty when you turn the pages". It won an award in the General Category under the 23rdKodansha Manga Awards in 1999.
