This first volume of the Ken Games series gives us a profile of Peter Fermat (aka Rock), a young man who, like each of the three main characters, is leading a double life. His story opens with a boxing match which has a nasty ending for the up-and-coming boxer, despite his victory. It's not long before we discover that Rock is not only striving to make it in the boxing world, but is also something of a mathematical genius, which is how he met his best friend, TJ. For the first time in all their years of friendship, TJ introduces Rock to a girlfriend, the lovely Anne. Anne and Rock soon establish a bond of trust when Rock discovers that Anne too is living a double life, even though Anne's secret is not exactly what she leads Rock to believe. This is just the beginning of the tangled web of lies and deception that gets ever more convoluted as the series goes on...
This is the second round of this hard-hitting series centered on three friends, all with something to hide. This time, we're zooming in on Mr. TJ Paper, who passes himself off as a banker, while he's actually raking it in on the gambling scene. And now he's got himself into a televised poker tournament, but will his lucky streak see him through a competition of this level? In the meantime, TJ's girlfriend, Anne and his best friend, Rock, run into each other again in even more surprising circumstances, and the bond they established previously strengthens even further, perhaps too far... to the extent that Rock even starts making big sacrifices in his own life. And all the while, there's Louviers, the love of Anne's life, lurking in the background, a constant reminder of the danger and violence she wants to leave behind.
Yoshi, a troubled teenager, is sent by his grandfather to Seijun, a highly renowned tattoo artist. Against all expectations, the boy masters the art of tattooing, including the complicated Tebori technique. Ten years later, Seijun reveals a great secret to his apprentice: his clients are from the yakuza, the formidable Japanese mafia. Each tattoo they bear has a specific meaning, often to do with the murders they've committed. When Yoshi discover that his friend is tattooed with the same strange design as one of the yakuza bosses, his whole world turns upside down...
This prequel to the Ken Games series gives us a little more insight into the enigmatic Louviers, Anne's childhood sweetheart and partner-in-crime. Louviers is at the end of his tether. He blows up the apartment he shares with Anne and takes flight. After this incident, he accepts a contract in a war zone. Once he's there, he finds himself struggling as much with the suspiciously vague information on his target as he does understanding the language. Consumed by doubt, he falls victim to the ghosts of the past and his eternal, impossible love for Anne begins to devour him...
In order to escape his violent past as an ex-yakuza gang member, Yoshi becomes the apprentice of one of Japan's greatest tattoo artists. But rather than escaping the yakuza, he finds himself constantly surrounded by them in the tattoo parlor. He then discovers that the sexy young woman he's just met has a tattoo of a strange, winged creature on her back. But Yoshi already knows this design, because it was he that came up with it for one of the yakuza chiefs. What does this mean? And what's this girl's connection to the yakuza? Little by little, Yoshi discovers a dark back-story, far worse than anything he could ever have imagined.
This third album concludes the Machiavellian trilogy in which every character seems to have pretty good (or bad) reasons to hide the truth from those they love. This time, it's Anne we're focusing on. She talks us through her childhood, her relationship with the enigmatic but dangerous Louviers, the first steps towards becoming an assassin, and the strange crossovers between writing and killing. Meanwhile, TJ goes off the rails after his discovery of Anne's true identity at a decisive moment in their relationship, and Rock achieves his greatest victory, but it's drenched in tragedy. As Anne says, "sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to get what you want."
Though young Yoshi immersed himself in tebori, the traditional art of Japanese tattooing, in order to escape his violent past, circumstances oblige him to-reluctantly-enter the underground world of Japan's mafia, the yakuza. Haunted by a legendary creature warning of impending doom, and after discovering his girlfriend is in reality an undercover cop, Yoshi finds himself on the run, unsure of whom to trust and where to hide...
Yoshi, jeune Japonais turbulent, est placé par son père chez Seijun, grand maître tatoueur. Contre toute attente, le garçon apprend avec assiduité cet art, y compris la technique complexe du tebori. Dix ans plus tard, Seijun confie ses secrets à son élève : ses clients sont de redoutables yakuza, et chaque tatouage a une signification précise, souvent en lien avec des meurtres. Lorsque Yoshi découvre que son amie possède le même étrange tatouage que l'un des chefs d'une puissante famille, son univers bascule...
Ancien membre d'un gang japonais, Yoshi est placé chez un maître tatoueur qui lui apprend le métier. Mais, alors qu'il pensait ainsi échapper à la violence, il se trouve au contact de dangereux yakuza qui fréquentent le salon. Quant à la jeune femme si séduisante qu'il vient de rencontrer, elle porte, tatouée dans le dos, une créature ailée. Or ce motif, Yoshi le connaît : il l'avait imaginé pour le compte d'un chef yakuza... Quels sont les liens entre le milieu et cette femme ? Quelle est la signification de tout cela ? De fil en aiguille, Yoshi découvre l'existence d'une menace bien plus sérieuse qu'il ne l'imaginait...
Ancien membre d'un gang japonais, Yoshi est placé chez un maître tatoueur qui lui apprend le métier. Mais, alors qu'il pensait ainsi échapper à la violence, il se trouve au contact de dangereux yakuza qui fréquentent le salon. Quant à la jeune femme si séduisante qu'il vient de rencontrer, elle porte, tatouée dans le dos, une créature ailée. Or ce motif, Yoshi le connaît : il l'avait imaginé pour le compte d'un chef yakuza... Quels sont les liens entre le milieu et cette femme ? Quelle est la signification de tout cela ? De fil en aiguille, Yoshi découvre l'existence d'une menace bien plus sérieuse qu'il ne l'imaginait... La conclusion de cette formidable trilogie qui, comme le souligne BDgest, nous offre « une narration maîtrisée et habile dans un écrin toujours plus beau » !
Le monde, écrasé de pollution, s'est effondré au cours de la WWW : la World Weather War, conjonction de terribles phénomènes climatiques. Heureusement, CityZen, ville écoresponsable révolutionnaire, répare la Terre grâce à des arbres recyclant la pollution et la réinjectant dans le sol sous la forme d'hydrocarbures. Amal, une lycéenne modèle, se prépare à s'impliquer dans les actions militantes de CityZen sitôt ses études finies. Mais le jour où l'on découvre qu'elle héberge un oiseau de l'« extérieur » - donc pollué - et que sa sœur a probablement rejoint la « DicNature », une bande d'activistes souhaitant détruire CityZen, la vie de la jeune fille bascule... Entre l'amour de sa sœur et ses convictions écologistes, Amal va devoir choisir ! Vous connaissiez l'univers de la chanteuse Jain ? Découvrez l'univers de la scénariste, subtile observatrice des problématiques écologistes de notre temps. Artiste aux multiples facettes, la chanteuse Jain explore en compagnie de sa sœur Léa l'univers de la BD, épaulée par Damien Perez. Toledano, avec Robledo, creuse le sillon esthétique et futuriste d'albums tels que Tebori.
