The Thief Akikazu Inoue

Seinen (and one Josei) One-shot compilation focusing on insincerity, revenge, and the two-faced nature of men. Includes the following: - **The Record of Peter Kürten** (ペーター・キュルテンの記録, Peter Kürten no Kiroku, ALT. ENG. - The Tale of Peter Kürten) - Manga biography on the infamous serial killer also known by the moniker *"The Vampire of Düsseldorf"*. Peter Kürten, a former prisoner-of-war, forms an idealistic couple with his wife and is a devoted unionist at meetings. In actuality he is a sexually perverted serial killer nicknamed the Vampire of Düsseldorf who taunts the police with escalating murders. After one of the murders, the police force a fake confession from another man, causing Peter to angrily reveal the truth to his wife, who gives him up to the police. At trial it is revealed that Peter is actually a criminal with a history of incest, bestiality, arson, and murder. When his lawyer tries to defend him by claiming madness, Peter angrily exclaims that his actions are revenge against the bourgeois. Peter is executed by guillotine. (Tezuka based the story on the work of Shunsuke Tsurumi) - **Sensual Nights** (もの憂げな夜, Monouge na Yoru) - A wealthy Japanese playboy visits Vietnam to seduce a woman who has supposedly stopped aging while waiting for her sweetheart who was taken away by soldiers. As he is in the middle of preparing to have sex with her, his contact tells him that the woman's man was taken away by the Japanese army during the Pacific War, causing a deep hatred of Japanese people in her. He panics, but recovers when the woman reacts by offering him her body. When she fights back against his attempts at intimacy, he tells her that her lover is likely dead and forces himself on her. The man then sees a sight of a wrinkled old woman that startles him so much he jumps out of the window. The woman he had seduced was actually the daughter of the unaging woman and her sweetheart, and his contact was her fiancé. - **Lord Iechika Mogami** (最上殿始末, Mogami-dono Shimatsu) - Piipii, a meager farmer, dreams of being a samurai so he can support his wife and their four children. One day he is employed by a lord to be his double, and Piipii's family is secretly killed. Piipii trains to be a lord, grooming and dressing himself to be the spitting image of the lord. As a test, the lord tells him to give the order to open the castle gates. Piipii rides back to visit his family, only to learn about their deaths. On the lord's wedding day, his double is supposed to replace him during the wedding ceremony to protect him from any attempts on his life. During the switch, Piipii murders the lord and consummates the marriage with the lady Sasa instead. When she learns of his identity, the lady has an affair with a syphilitic beggar, and kills herself. The disease spreads to Piipii and Sasa gets her revenge. - **The Lady of the Rhine** (ラインの館にて, Rhine no Yakata nite) - A Japanese woman accompanies her husband on a business trip to Düsseldorf. She catches him having an affair, and when she confronts him, he leaves her. As she desperately searches for him in the streets, the woman is hit by a car and is hospitalized for a month. When she recovers, she visits her benefactor Lady Rathwood, the owner of a castle they had visited earlier. As she lives with Lady Rathwood, the woman learns of her hatred for men and her hatred for her husband is kindled. One day she discovers that the car she was hit with belongs to Lady Rathwood and she witnesses Lady Rathwood taking off the disguise of the woman who seduced her husband. Lady Rathwood calls her husband to the castle and gives the woman a knife, telling her to take her revenge. The woman refuses and goes back to her husband. - **Fire Mountain** (火の山, Hi no Yama, ALT. ENG. - The Thief Akikazu Inoue) - Time is during the Second World War. The ruffian Akikazu Inoue (whose first name could also be read as Showa) went to the Sobetsu village in Hokkaido, became an assistant of Mr. Masao Mimatsu, an observer of Showa Shinzan, which rapidly generated. The description that Mikami lived for the observation and protection of Showa Shinzan was based on a true story. --- **Volume 265 of the Osamu Tezuka Complete Works**