Yasuoka Shion lost her parents, and her voice, when she was young...in a murder.

She was found amidst a blood-soaked room, and the only hint for the suspect was a Shougi board and one piece: the King. Now, Shion steps into the world of female professional Shougi players. As her popularity and fame slowly rises, so do the questions about her past, particularly the murder case that was never solved.

Zankoku na Kami ga Shihaisuru portrays the tale of two step-brothers - Jeremy and Ian, as they strive to discover their separate paths towards redemption.
Jeremy, a sensitive but outgoing 17 year old, is delighted to hear the news of his neurotic and excitable mother's remarriage to a wealthy British man. However, much to his horror, his sweet-talking new step-father Greg, soon begins to exhibit a disturbing trait...he is a sadistic pedophile and loses no time in making Jeremy his target. Months of horrific, systematic abuse drives Jeremy to desperation; he sabotages his step-father's car with the hope of eliminating him. The resulting accident, however, kills his mother along with Greg.
Jeremy's shocked and guilt-stricken behaviour arouses the suspicions of Greg's free-spirited son, Ian. He unearths enough evidence to tie his step-brother to the crime; but in doing so, also discovers the details of Greg's sexual abuse of Jeremy.
Caught in a moral dilemma -- between punishing the criminal and atoning for his father's sins, Ian soon finds himself haunted by lust for Jeremy. Is it lust...or love? He wonders whether he shares his father's proclivities, but finds himself helpless to resist being drawn into a passionate and painful relationship with Jeremy.

Note: Won the first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award Excellence prize in 1997.

A long time ago, a pair of twins were born. Back then, however, multiple births were considered unlucky, so one of the twins, a girl, was... crushed to death with a millstone, buried under the shade of a large mulberry tree. The girl's soul, lacking a fully grown spirit, could not reincarnate, and as such was forced to wander the world. Only after collecting 108 individual sources of human misery/worldly desire could she move onto the next world.

From Bakeneko's Lair:

Poor, poor Akatsuki Homare. He's gotten himself into a mess of trouble. Considering his arrogance, he's getting exactly what he deserves. Yes, Homare, life is a game of give and take. You don't only get to be on the taking side...

From Tokyopop:

A chilling dramatic series about Shinjyurou Mamiya, an embalmer in a nation where men of his profession are viewed as outcasts engaging in an unaccepted and unclean practice. For Shinjyurou, it's just a job. But in doing it, he's gained an understanding of death, and more important, what it truly means to live...

Nareh and Tareh are fraternal twins, Nareh the elder sister and Tareh the younger brother. When Nareh learns that Tareh has been accepted into the all-boys Ordinary School, she is shocked, and prepared to stop him at all costs...

Based on the eponymous novel, Sugar Candy Bullets Can’t Pierce Anything follows two young girls during one fateful summer.

Yamada Nagisa is a bored teenager who finds everyday life extremely unappealing: thus her plans to join a military academy as soon she graduates. On the last term of middle school, a strange girl named Mokuzu Umino, who claims to be a mermaid, transfers into Nagisa's class and, much to her bewilderment, begins to follow her around incessantly.

An annoyed and discomfited Nagisa initially strives to avoid these encounters, but then she begins to catch glimpses of the pain and sadness concealed beneath Umino's cheerful and carefree demeanour...

Marie is a shy college student and also a doll maker. Then one day, she is trapped in a gothic mansion by a mysterious young man calling himself "Kahrel." Kahrel demands that she 'creates the "people" that make up the world' for him if she wants to leave. The terrified Marie then has the dolls she's made in past come to life, and are bearing down on her! Gothic Doll Fantasy!!

From Lovers Dream:

Miyuki is a beautiful rich girl who has lost her mother a few months ago and her father suddenly disappeared. Mikage, her butler, lives in her mansion and is her only emotional support that she has.

One day, Miyuki has an obscene dream with Mikage.
Miyuki is hiding her true face, and... also Mikage?

Kinukawa Yuusuke is a second-class pianist who earns a living by playing in small clubs. Things become complicated when Fukami, a yakuza boss with mesmerizing looks, becomes a regular at Yuusuke's piano bar. As Fukami's appreciation for Yuusuke's piano playing grows, so do Yuusuke's feelings for him. Although Yuusuke knows he shouldn't be attracted to such a dangerous man, he finds himself unable to stop thinking about Fukami. And so, one night in a desperate attempt to get Fukami's attention on something other than music, Yuusuke spills a drink on him...

Is love understanding someone even when he doesn't understand himself? Sometimes the music of the soul is sweeter than any instrument in Nishida Higashi's story of two very unlikely men.

Features a story called Boku wa Taisetsuna (My Precious One) in vol.2

After the body dies, the soul lives on. Many spirits progress toward the world of light, through the levels of the spirit world where they study how to improve their souls. These spirits are sometimes reincarnated into the physical world, and sometimes they are sent back as guardian spirits for other living people. Guardian spirits must protect their charge's souls from the blackness that oozes up from the world of darkness below.

Riyon is a very laid-back spirit, who often skips her spirit classes to fool around. To train her further, she is sent back to the physical world as a guardian spirit. Instead of following a human from birth, she is helping a beleaguered man, the Japanese Prime Minister Kasuga Soichiro, in the last year and a half of his life. After an unexpected close call with death, Kasuga gains some unusual talents, including the ability to see Riyon. Will Riyon and Kasuga together be able to protect his battered soul?

Mihail Meyer (nicknamed "Michel" by his wife) is a half-Japanese doctor. While on the way home with his wife late one night, he nearly runs over a 6-year-old boy playing in the street. Alex is a precocious but endearing child and the son of up-and-coming musician Christopher Adler. Alex and Michel become fast friends, and Michel soon notices Christopher's coldness and neglect towards Alex, though the boy seems to adore him.

10 years later, the widowed Michel has lost touch with the Adler family, but has followed Christopher's career as he rose to become a world-renowned pianist and conductor. One night, after mistakenly stumbling into the gay red-light district, he spots a boy who looks like Alex hanging out with a couple of rowdy-looking guys and gives chase...

(From StarryHeaven) There's the affectionless father and the overly affectionate mother, and then there's the beautiful 18 year old high schooler Rina. "Friends are just meant to be used," is what Rina says when she is caught having sex with one of her friends' boyfriends. Rina has such a low opinion of friends, but when she is hospitalized her classmate from elementary school, Maki, appears before her, wanting to continue their free-of-charge friendship from long ago. In this day and age, just what is the meaning of friendship? A tale of friendship based on a true story, as retold by Yoshi (the same author as Deep Love).

"What if Jose and the bullfighter in Bizet's classic opera 'Carmen' were lovers?" This is that idea, brought to life. A retelling of the famous work detailing one man's twisted love: "I must kill that woman who leads my heart astray" A beautiful factory girl tosses a rose at a soldier. Little does he know that the same flower would bring ruin upon him... It drips, it flows, so red, red, red - a 28-page oneshot!

Tsubasa Shiina is a fourth grader who just moved to Hokkaido with her father. Shy Tsubasa has a hard time making new friends at school. Her father is concerned, but he's just too busy with his new job. He even shows up late on Parents' Day. One night, Tsubasa sees a strange-looking object falling from the sky. Is it a spaceship!? It falls right into the woods by her house. It turns out to be a wounded alien in a damaged spaceship. All of a sudden, a monster starts coming at Tsubasa! Tsubasa suddenly transforms into "Figure." Confused and afraid, she somehow manages to defeat the monster with her new unbelievable power. After the fight, Tsubasa sees a girl who looks just like her--the girl's name is Hikaru!

The story is set in a dystopian alternative present where any kind of substance able to alter the state of mind is legalized and authorized for consumption at home or in designated places called Pomp Bars.
These products, once considered very dangerous, are now freely advertised on TV. The bartender chooses the ones more suited to his customers and serves them with special cocktails.
When the Pompies movement obtained the liberalization of the drugs it seemed a historically meaningful change destined to improve the world - a dream realized in a manner that radically affected humanity's way of life.
But in a world where all feelings are artificial and where everyone is a potential drug addict, nothing has really changed for the better. Only a select few drugs are considered dangerous and put under strict control by hygiene offices, which is given full authority to handle matters related to the severely addicted.
Kabu, a small-time peddler and heavy addict. Used to any kind of hallucinogenic trip, he is able to feel the happiness through the ecstasy of the drug, while on the same time hypocritically hating who gave birtn to that society which has forced him to the live this way.
After an overdose caused by mixing two incompatible drugs, he spends his days looking for stimulants until the encounter with an enigmatic man who offers him a new kind of illegal substance. Ultraheaven.
From that moment on his incredible journey begins - where dream and reality are fused in an undivided world - causing him both hysterical joy and unbearable pain.

A slice-of-life story written from the perspective of a child who fears that living with her mother is robbing herself of individuality and her mother of freedom.

Kain Walker is an admired and appreciated policeman of New York by all his colleagues. By fright at disappointing his fellows and also being discovered, Kain hides that he is gay and refrains from any coherent relation... until the day when his way crosses that of Mel Frederics, a calm and soft young man with a dark past. A meeting which is going to confuse both their lives.