Download Billy Bat manga by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (.CBR)

Billy Bat manga by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki
Requirements: CBR Reader, 1.1 GB.
Overview: Billy Bat is a comic-in-a-comic and the real protagonist is a Japanese-American artist named Kevin Yamagata who draws Billy Bat for "Marble Comics".

Volume 1 was the fifth best selling manga volume in its week of release, selling over 145,000 copies in a week.

Genre: Comics, Manga, Crime, Fiction, Thriller, Supranatural, Prophecies, History, Ongoing.

Billy Bat

Naoki Urasawa

Takashi Nagasaki

Kodansha, 2008 – Now.

The story is set in 1949 and follows Japanese-American comic book artist Kevin Yamagata as he draws the popular detective series "Billy Bat". When he learns he may have unconsciously copied the character from an image he saw while serving in occupied Japan, he returns to Japan to get permission to use Billy Bat from its original creator. Upon arriving there, however, he becomes embroiled in a web of murder, cover-ups, and prophecy that all leads back to Billy Bat.

It is soon evident, however, that the truth of Billy Bat’s nature is far larger than Kevin could ever guess, spanning millennia and across the world. Kevin finds that The Bat is related to an ancient scroll which is said anyone who possess the scroll will take rule of the world.

Naoki Urasawa’s “Billy Bat”.

Anne Ishii on December 29th, 2010 at 12:13 PM

I chanced being in Japan to pick up volume 4 of Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki’s “Billy Bat” this month. The premise and conceit of the series are so fascinating I was surprised not to see more written about it. Though Urasawa’s prolificacy and supersaturation of American manga-didactics make it virtually impossible to treat all known works at Plutonic highs. But hey, this is just a five-dollar preamble to a quick book review.

Billy Bat is an attempt at Pynchon-esque meta-fiction that marries two ethnicities so indivisible one rarely ever sees them in the same cel: Japanese and Japanese-Americans. Plot: WWII’s just ended. Kevin Yamagata, who illustrates the wildly popular series “Billy Bat” for Marvel, has discovered he accidentally ripped off the main character from an akabon (dime novel) written by a very deliberate Tezuka-lookalike. Billy Bat then starts hopscotching through historical milestones presaged by “Billy Bat” comics penned by others; milestones dating as far back as Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. The Janus-faced Billy Bat has been behind Napoleon, the Tokugawa Shogunate, the Kennedy assassination, and… 9/11. By volume 4, Billy Bat has been diffused into a Mickey Mouse-type character with an evil shadow. The image is compounded with a logo almost identical to Batman.

The story is ambitious in no small part because of the inherent polemics. But what kills me, absolutely kills me, is that this supposed Rosetta Stone of epoch-making events is a cartoon bat with a bad sense of humor. I alluded to Pynchon earlier, but just imagine if instead of W.A.S.T.E., the Trystero Organization’s slogan in The Crying of Lot 49 were M.I.L.F. But the enduring message is clear: writing, comics, illustrated narrative, all have factive and fictive implications. If truth is stranger than fiction, Billy Bat suggests one should never talk to strangers.

About author: Naoki Urasawa

He made his professional manga debut with Return in 1981. Three of his series have been adapted into anime: Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl (1986–1993), Master Keaton (1988–1994), and Monster (1994–2001). Arguably his most notable work, 20th Century Boys (2000–2006), was made into a three-part live-action movie series, which were released in 2008 and 2009. He has received the Shogakukan Manga Award three times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize twice, and the Kodansha Manga Award once. As a storyteller, his most distinctive characteristics are his dense, multi-layered, interconnecting narratives, his mastery of suspense, clever homages to classic manga & anime and a frequent use of German characters and settings.

In 2008, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Junot Diaz praised Monster, adding that "Urasawa is a national treasure in Japan." Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, whom he’s previously worked with on Monster, Pluto and Billy Bat, will begin writing a sequel to Master Keaton titled Master Keaton Remaster.

Beta!! (1983)

Yawara! (1986 to 1993)

Dancing Policeman (1987)

Master Keaton (1988 to 1994)

NASA (1988)

Happy! (1993 to 1999)

Monster (1994 to 2001)

Jigoro! (1994)

20th Century Boys + 21th Century Boys (1999 to 2001)

Pluto (2003 to 2009)

Billy Bat (2008 to Now-Ongoing)

Mangari Michi (2009) (20th Century Boys Spin-off)