Scarlet finds herself face to face with the Devil himself, who is thrilled to finally meet her. He tells her she was the 
worst of the worst in life and he wants her to become the Grim Reaper. She has no memory of anything before waking up in hell and the offer is to either go straight to level 9 or return to Earth as the grim reaper and bring the devil one soul a day. Sinners will be marked with a giant red X on their chest so she can find them. Scarlet opts to try out the new job, only to struggle with the morality of it.
She meets a disgraced police detective named Chase who is interested in her immediately. In this volume we don’t learn much about him other than he wants to earn his way back onto the force and his mom is the chief of police (or an equivalent.) Scarlet and Chase come to an agreement to work together to try and solve a crime that will restore Chase and hopefully in the process help Scarlet piece her memory back together about the life on Earth she cannot remember. Both have secrets and both are troubled. Scarlet has trouble killing people and bringing them to the devil as the morality and finality of it feels like too much, but the devil always has easy answers for her.
With the popularity of Lore Olympus it is not surprising to see publishers grabbing webcomics in the hopes of adapting them for new audiences. The problem is not all comics are created equally and not everything that finds an audience in an app like WEBTOON will necessarily find an audience at the bookstore. Some webcomics also have trouble making the jump to physical books because it loses something in the layout and format change. This book feels like one of those where too much is lost in the transition.
I’m the Grim Reaper was originally a WEBTOON comic that has been adapted to manga format by Viz Media. This volume contains episodes 1-16, with a second volume set to publish later this year.
The writing and the approach to the subject matter felt like it was written by someone much younger. The way the characters talk about love, is murder ever justifiable, who should go to hell and what constitutes being bad enough to condemn someone there; it has a rather juvenile attitude and approach. It also tries to inject some humor through the art by switching character styles, like in other manga, giving some juxtaposition to the seriousness of the subject matter. It never quite struck the right note for me in doing so and I found myself mostly unimpressed by it. Additionally, I believe this book would have been better if like most printed manga it was in black and white. The colors throughout were just flat and lifeless. The lack of detail and copy/paste backgrounds made it hard to enjoy. These things you can get away with when people are reading your new webcomic chapter in a couple of minutes and moving on to something else, but when you are faced with 240 pages of it all at once, it become grating.
This book creates a dilemma for me as someone who purchases graphic novels and recommends them. The publisher rates it Teen+ (which they identify as 16 and older) with the following disclaimer, “This volume contains graphic violence, mature language, and violence towards children.” However, the tone and art I believe are meant to appeal to a younger crowd of readers than myself and those who enjoy webcomics generally. I would not purchase this for our adult section, as I don’t believe those readers would enjoy it, but I cannot recommend it to anyone under 17 who might actually like it. It somehow tries to do too much and doesn’t do nearly enough at the same time.
Because this was originally a WEBTOON comic, you can find it in it’s entirety on that site/app now. If this is something you are considering, I might encourage you to take at least a quick look there and see if the audience you are purchasing for might be better suited than I was.
I’m the Grim Reaper Vol. 01
By GRAVEWEAVER
VIZ, 2024
ISBN: 9781974739080
Publisher Age Rating: Teen+
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18)
