Shoulder a Coffin Kuro

Plot

A traveling girl, Kuro, searches the land for the witch that cast a curse on her that turns her body black and will eventually kill her if not stopped.

Characters

Kuro (クロ, Kuro)

The main heroine of the story. Is depicted in a black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat with dark hair and hazel eyes, seen carrying around a large coffin. Her real name is not known, only being referred to as 'Kuro' (Japanese word for black) after finding Nijuku and Sanju. Personality-wise, she is calm and collective, and takes the role as Nijuku and Sanju's guardian. Is searching for the witch who cursed her and her friend, Sen. Her curse isn't well described, but it is known that she wears bandages beneath her clothes in order to help slow the effects, and that it colors her skin black. Whether this coloring penetrates into her internal organs is debatable, but in the second volume, another girl with the same curse is found in a flashback, whose body was dissolving where the black has taken hold.

Sen (セン, Sen)

Kuro's friend, long-time companion and teacher. Sen, although very snarky as well as a womanizer, is very knowledgeable and wise. He was cursed to take the form of 1,000 bats, which he can seemingly control to a degree, as occasionally they do wander off. His name is a play on words, as he was Kuro's teacher (Sensei), and was then cursed to split apart into 1,000 bats. He can be accurately portrayed as the opposite of Kuro, who tends to be silent, while Sen is eccentric and speaks with sarcasm.

Nijuku (ニジュク, Nijuku)

A little girl who is found with her sister, Sanju, by Kuro. Both sisters show shape-shifting abilities as well as other supernatural traits, such as draining color from the environment and applying it to other objects or creatures. Both Nijuku and Sanju are usually depicted with cat-ears and a tail. Nijuku's ears and tail are black, due to her trying to take some of Kuro's black coloring, which comes from her curse.

Sangju (サンジュ, Sanju)

The sister of Nijuku, found by Kuro.

Manga

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 September 2015, five 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 Kiyuzuki was said to be "excited but hesitant" on how the humor would be received. Five volumes have been released by Yen Press.

Drama CD

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 Kiyuzuki. 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.

Reception

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 reviews. He gave both volumes an A grading 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" make for a good read, she also goes on to say that the story is sticks in your mind after you have finished reading it.