Manga: ZombiePowder

<WARNING: A BIT OF SPOILERS>

In order to get Zombie Powder, one must collect all 12 'Rings of the Dead'. With the Zombie Powder, you can either become immortal or bring someone back to life. The trick is the rings are dangerous and if touched by flesh it will devour the life force from them.

So enter Elwood, a 14 year old pick pocket and knife thrower, who happened to feed the wrong person at the wrong time. Gamma Akutabi, the man who was fed and also has a 960 million nit (the currency) bounty on his head. When Elwood's boss's get wind that he had Gamma at his home and didn't tell them, they come to collect. In the crossfire, Elwood's ill sister, Sheryl Ann gets killed while trying to protect him. Gamma comes and saves Elwood from his former bosses, and the young boy ends up following the man in order to get the Zombie Powder to resurrect his dead sister.

The manga is only 4 volumes long due to it being canceled. The reason I first got into it was because I saw it was by Tite Kubo, the man who had done Bleach. Apparently this is his first manga series, and Bleach his second. Go figure the US would get it backwards. No wonder Gamma has a Grimmjow vibe to him (heh).

ZombiePowder is reminiscent of Trigun. In where as the main character holds immense power, a dark secret, and wants to help the weak. And like Trigun, the main character has an upbeat partner who is known as C.T. Smith. This man dresses like a Londoner and I wouldn't be too surprise if this was an anime, that he would have a London accent too.

Not only that, but you also have other minor characters such as Wolfina and her brother Emilio, who had one of the rings nested inside his body. And last you saw of anyone was Gamma had taken everyone to a mad scientist known as Nazna Gemini, who would perform surgery on Emilio if Wolfina would be her test subject for a year. Furthermore, Gamma and Smith left Elwood to see what kind of path he would choose. And that's when it was canceled.

Due to the blantant ending, nothing is known for sure about what happens to the characters. But then again...that's what fanfiction is for. I would not mind seeing this series picked up again, just for the shear fact that in the last chapter of Volume 4, Kubo gave you a lot of hints to some very interesting facts about Gamma's past as well as Smith's. But I highly doubt that would happen anytime soon.