In a modern Japan inexplicably at war with vague foreigners, its prisons emptied to fill the military with soldiers, its population constantly reminded via loud speakers in public streets, we begin the tale with a delusional young man, Hiroshi, who talks to an imaginary friend while killing people with remarkable ease thanks to an interesting suppressed past.

This initially unflappable man gets a job working as a proxy for vengeance-seekers via a newly instated vengeance act. The act is so outrageous that even author Jiro Matsumoto is laughing while he writes this brilliant manga. We are looking at a Japan where courts receive petitions from victims of crimes, whereby local vengeance enforcer agencies inform the intended targets then use government proxy enforcers, aka assassins, to hunt down and kill whoever the victim has a problem with, regardless of whether the criminal has served time already or not.

This ludicrous notion is balanced out by informing the ex-convicts of the date of when the hunt will begin and by being allowed a weapon and even a bodyguard to defend themselves. "It's not a death sentence!" a character quips pleasantly. It’s a decisive and detailed government that is in control of Japan, detailed to the point of having a thick manual of rules and regulations guaranteeing the 'rights' of both proxy and target of retribution. A government that’s still following a political correctness-obsessed culture, and the result is both hilarious because of how close to reality Freesia's idiosyncratic world is, and horrific because of how it’s not but might be.

If the man who killed your loved ones is freed from prison, would you pay an agency to legally attempt to kill him for you? Would you legally attempt it yourself? Would you try to forget and move on? This is the world of Freesia. As bold and outrageous as the vengeance act is, its born of necessity to fight a war and to placate friends and families of victims who deem it unfair to free criminals early, or at all.

On top of the basic premise which is the backbone of the story, there is the added dimension of having a cast populated by mentally unstable narcissists butting heads constantly. The biggest conflict is between Hiroshi and a mystery woman, working for an enforcer agency, who gets under his skin making him doubt his entire way of life, to a fellow proxy enforcer who sees himself as a hunter and feels threatened by Hiroshi’s non-prey like atmosphere. Matsumoto ramps up the tension through numerous hallucinations and moments of reflection by Hiroshi who is the by-product of the insane environment depicted.

Jiro Matsumoto's wit is absolutely scathing. The black humour is dripping off almost each panel in this sordid tale, with nonchalant quips and payoffs that are so droll you have to be a fan of Kafka-esque lunacy to enjoy it, otherwise you'll turn away in clueless disgust.

Matsumoto's writing snakes its way through simple laughs like uninvited sex on top of a poor granny, to terribly mean-spirited wit like the first instance of the vengeance act being delivered to an uncomprehending mother of a killer who has already served time for his crime, and ultimately to more darker territory with harsh flashbacks of rape and murder that are anything but attempts to make you chuckle. The enormity of the consequences of having such a government sponsored act are fully explored through various situations, all of them unflinching as they should be.

In short: Matsumoto knows how to tell a tale and how to use humour. He knows exactly when to throw punches and pull them, (although in this case ‘pulling punches’ means having conventional humour and not something dreamt up from the lower depths of the demonic dimension) he knows when to inject a particular type of comedy into a scene, he is the master of the form and his punch-lines are devastating.

The art is in typical Matsumoto style, at first glance it’s as if he drew it in five seconds, but it’s all actually well detailed with many things going on in the background. The composition is skilful and overall it just all feels the complete opposite of the majority of polished manga out there. His art world looks lived in strangely enough. It’s the care and attention to detail despite how crude the art looks that is what gives it charm and the sense of aliveness about it.

Freesia has plenty of laughs but is not a mere comedy, it’s too detailed in its execution of the bold premise and too wildly satirical for that. Although it veers off into supernatural action hijinks at times, it maintains a surreal vibe about it consistent with the mental instability of most of its cast.

Freesia is of the same ilk as Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. It’s a mirror of the present, a notebook doodle imagining of the future; it’s the best kind of tale, full of rich content told vividly and with creative unabashed irreverent flair.