Flowers of Evil, Volume 9
At    only 30 years of age, Shuzo Oshimi is already considered a seasoned    veteran of the Japanese comics community. Winner of the most important    comics awards for newcomers, the Tetsuya Chiba Award in 2001, Oshimi  has   been penning quirky slice-of-life dramas now for a decade for  major   manga publishers such as Kodansha and Futabasha. Raised in the  slow laid   back hills of Gunma, in mid-eastern Japan, Oshimi wished to  someday   escape his community for bigger pastures. Living solely off of  comics   and books, he is a man of words and that shows in his very  humanist   stories. While he has drawn nine series in the past decade,  Oshimi's   star began to climb just recently in 2008 with the release of  his first   hitDrifting Net Cafe. This horror-themed homage to the legendary Kazuo Umezzu work,Drifting Classroom,    was adapted into a live action series and propelled Oshimi onto an    international stage. He would soon reach new heights in 2009 with his    most recent series Flowers of Evil. In 2010 and 2011, the property    quietly landed on numerous must read lists and has helped revitalize the    shonen genre.