Hakukomaru (博光丸) is the name of the fisher ship that seals the cold and dangerous waters of the Russian peninsula of Kamchatka, always followed by an escort of Japanese Army. At board travel the workers who have to catch and tin crabs, hopeless and exploited until unimaginable limits by a cruel patron.
It's a fiery critic against capitalism originally written as a novel by Japanese communist party member Takiji Kobayashi.

Manga version of the novel Kanikousen by Kobayashi Takiji. 
Aboard the Japanese crab ship 'Kanikosen' equipped with a cannery facility, workers are forced to labor under pitiful conditions at minimum wages. Sick of being ruled by their harsh Superintendent, one of the workers, Shinjo, urges his peers to rise up and start a revolution on board of the Kanikosen.

A sci-fi version of Kobayashi Takiji's proletarian novel Kanikousen, in which we follow the young fisherman Ryusuke, in a fictional future where the sea is evaporating and aquatic creatures have evolved into flying species.

“Time to go to hell!”
 
Anyone who boards the Hakuko Maru ship is alerted to their destination. It seems to be the only alternative left for those unemployed, bankrupt small traders, landless peasants, poor young people and others rejected by society. Still, no one is prepared for the hell that is the ship's routine. In that mix of boat and factory, on the high seas, workers have no rights and are at the mercy of brutal exploitation and violence from the fishing conglomerate's foremen. Some die from malnutrition, others from mistreatment. The workers then discover that, if they don't want to work themselves to death, they will have to resist and fight for their lives.
 
A classic of 20th century Japanese literature, an exciting comic book version. Originally published in 1929, the novel Kanikosen cost the life of its author, Takiji Kobayashi. Because of the book's enormous success, Kobayashi aroused the ire of the Japanese government and ruling classes. After living in hiding for some time, the writer was arrested, brutally tortured and, finally, murdered by the police in 1933. He was just 29 years old.
 
Kanikosen was banned for many years, but was eventually rediscovered and, since then, it has been one of Japan's most cultivated novels, with several versions for cinema, theater and this celebrated manga adaptation by Gō Fujio.

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