Manchuria Opium Squad

"In Manchuria, human life is worthless…" The year was Showa 12 (1937). Isamu Hinata, a soldier of the Kanto Army, arrived in Manchuria and lost his right eye on the battlefield. Deemed “useless,” he was reassigned to the agricultural corps, producing food for the army, while enduring daily abuse from his superiors. One day, he discovered poppies — the raw material for the narcotic “opium” — being cultivated in a corner of the farm. To help save his sick mother, Isamu began to refine opium. This fateful decision would set in motion events that would change both his own destiny and that of Manc…