Akudama Drive

Long ago, a war between Kanto and Kansai split Japan in two. Kansai became a vassal state — neon-lit, technologically advanced, and slowly rotting from the inside as the government lost its grip and crime took over. The worst of those criminals are called Akudama.

The police fear them. The public is fascinated by them. And the government executes them publicly, when it can catch them.

An anonymous client sends a message to some of the most dangerous Akudama alive — break a death row prisoner named Cutthroat out before his execution, and earn a fortune. Four of them show up. So does a low-level street thug who stumbled into the wrong place. And so does a completely ordinary girl who picked up a coin off the ground and found herself, through a chain of impossible coincidences, mistaken for a master criminal.

She is not an Akudama. She has no special powers, no criminal record, and no idea what she has walked into. But the collar around her neck will detonate if she tries to run. So she plays the role. And somewhere between survival and the secrets hidden at the front of a speeding Shinkansen, she stops just playing it. Akudama Drive is loud, stylish, and relentless — and underneath all of it, quietly devastating.