Blaster Knuckle is a manga by Shizuya Wazarai. Set in America in the 1880's, this series takes place in an alternate history where The Klan are actually flesh-eating demons, using the racism of the time as an excuse to hunt and eat black people. One man named Victor "Bloody Rain" Freeman knows their secret and has made it his quest to hunt down and kill as many as possible. To do so, he uses the titular Blaster Knuckle, a modified gauntlet that shoots silver bullets on contact. However, the demons only change shape at night, and turn back in the morning without anybody knowing better.
Blaster Knuckle ran for a short 20 chapters and was then discontinued. Still a fun read for mindless action.
It's also interesting to note that Wazarai was good friends with Kentaro Miura in high school. Yes, that Miura.
See also: Lovecraft Country, for a slightly more sedate take on the concept of supernatural monsters exploiting old-fashioned American racism for their own nefarious ends.
Tropes:
- Anachronism Stew: The manga takes place east of the Mississippi, but the setting looks more like the Wild West than the Deep South.
- Additionally, the manga is set in the 1880s; after the fall of the first KKK (roughly 1872) and before the rise of the second KKK (roughly 1915). Although this could be explained as demons simply taking the place of the Klan during this period of inactivity.
- Author Appeal: Boxing
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Victor's Slayer training has him operating in blatantly superhuman range. Apart from the speed mentioned below, he also punches hard enough to collapse skulls and leave fist-shaped craters where faces used to be.
- Covers Always Lie: Or translation notes do, anyway. The KKK is limited to a single scene lasting a few pages.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The series pulls no punches in depicting the racial attitudes common during the late 19th century.
- Demon Slaying: Victor's stock in trade.
- Dodge the Bullet: Victor's insane boxing skills allow him to read the movements of people trying to shoot him and accordingly evade the shot before it's even fired.
- Further into the manga, Vic proves to be fast enough to dodge bullets after they have been fired. At one point he moves with enough speed to vanish before his opponents' eyes and circle behind them before they even notice that he has moved.
- Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Despite using many other weapons, Victor's most often used (and effective) is a set of metal knuckles with several shotgun barrels built into them, which fire silver loads directly into any demon they hit.
- Genius Bruiser: The secret demon slaying society Training from Hell also included educational classes on par with a military academy, while also turning all of the kids into super human fighters.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Victor is reviled as a murderer because of the racism of the period and because every demon he kills reverts to human form upon death, and so he always has to move around to avoid capture by the police and lynching by angry white folks.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Considering the era this manga takes place in, the demons are simply humans who transformed into the beasts within themselves and act out on their darkest impulses.
- Lightning Bruiser: Victor again.
- One-Winged Angel: Every demon has a form like this.
- Outlaw: Victor is this by default because of his Demon Slaying career, the way demons work in this verse, and the racism of the period.
- Power Fist: Victor's title weapon of choice, a modified gauntlet that fires silver bullets on contact when he punches demons.
- Recycled In Space: This series is essentially what early Berserk would be like if Guts was a black boxer, the demons he fought were members of The Klan, and the whole thing was set in the 19th Century American South.
- Scary Black Man: Victor.
- Shoot the Dog: Victor has to do this a lot.
- This Was His True Form: Every demon that Victor kills reverts to its former human form upon death, which causes problems for Victor who already has to deal with the racism of the period.
