Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro

Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro (Japanese: 棺担ぎのクロ。〜懐中旅話〜, Hepburn: Hitsugi Katsugi no Kuro. ~Kaichū Tabi no Wa~, lit. Kuro the Coffin Bearer ~Pocket Travel Tales~) is a Japanese manga series by Satoko Kiyuduki, serialized in Hōbunsha's seinen manga magazine Manga Time Kirara since December 2004. The manga was on hiatus from 2009 to 2012 but resumed and the last compiled volume was published in July 2018. In December, 2007 Yen Press licensed the series for release in North America where all of the volumes have been released.
A traveling girl known as Kuro searches the land for the witch that cast a curse on her, that stains her body black and will eventually kill her if not stopped. Kuro travels with two young, shapeshifting twins named Sanju and Nijuku, as well as her teacher, friend and companion Sen, who must take the form of 1,000 bats. They meet many strange, unusual people on their journey and supernatural occurrences happen frequently. However, the travelers' normal course of action is to help them solve their problems and then be on their way. Sometimes, these meetings reveal information about the witch, and occasionally they find a person who has been cursed by the witch as well.
The series started serialization in the Japanese Yonkoma magazine "Manga Time Kirara", published by Hōbunsha. The first manga volume was released in Japan on March 27, 2006. Two volumes were released before the series was put on hiatus in 2009 for unknown reasons. In 2012, a wraparound on the book jacket of the fourth volume of GA Geijutsuka Art Design Class, also by Kiyuduki, announced Kuro would resume serialization and that the long delayed third volume would start shipping. For the week of January 23–29, 2012 the third volume of Shoulder a Coffin ranked #28 on the Japanese Comic Ranking with 23,425 copies sold. As of 2019, eight volumes have been released all together.
In December, 2007 through a panel at New York Anime Festival, Yen Press announced it had licensed the series for release in North America. The author Satoko Kiyuduki was said to be "excited but hesitant" on how the humor would be received. All eight volumes have been released by Yen Press.
A Drama CD was released by Geneon Universal on July 25, 2007, and distributed through Frontier Works. The CD features a story which was done by Satoko Kiyuduki. Seven tracks are present with the story narrator being Sen the bat, a character from the series. In the story the cast is introduced, and four frames of the series are focused on.
Characters from the series appear alongside other Manga Time Kirara characters in the 2019 mobile RPG, Kirara Fantasia.
The first volume of the series was reviewed by Casey Brienza from Anime News Network. She gave the volume an overall rating of a C− calling the reading experience "annoying". She went on to praise the artwork however, and the color of the pages. John Rose from the Fandom Post gave the third and fourth volumes a passing "A" grade, calling them a "phenomenal read" with "gorgeous art". Katherine Dacey from PopCultureShock gave the first volume an A− rating. She says in her review that the "mixture of melancholy and humor" makes for a good read, and called it thought-provoking.