Marco with his Hades Girl Eurydice body pillow
The Geek Ex-Hitman (そのヲタク、元殺し屋。Sono Otaku, Moto Koroshiya) is a Shōnen gangster/otaku comedy manga by Ko-dai. The series ran for 28 chapters in Shōnen Ace Plus beginning 1 May 2020, and was released in English by Yen Press in three tankoubon volumes from August 2022 to December 2023.The Tall, Dark, and Handsome Marco is a notorious hitman for The Mafia, feared throughout Italy as "the Oracle of Florence". One day, everything changed: he broke into his latest target's apartment to find him watching a Magical Girl anime, Hades Girl Eurydice. Completely distracted from the terrified Occidental Otaku target, he reached for the Eurydice figurine on her shelf, and uttered three words:
And with that, Marco forever gave up his life of crime and moved to Japan to follow his newfound passion for all things anime. He is soon joined by two Carabinieri who initially pursue him to Japan on orders from the Italian government: Viviana, a Yaoi Fangirl who is obsessed with Eurydice's hot male lead, and her partner Andre, who has no idea what Marco and Viviana are going on about with this series but turns out to be a talented sketch artist able to reproduce scenes from the series solely off of their descriptions.
Et voila: from the violence of Italy's underworld, a new doujinshi circle is born.
This manga provides examples of the following tropes:
- Bland-Name Product: In addition to Hades Girl Eurydice, Marco finds common ground with a yakuza boss over assembling "Nundam" model kits.
- Cerebus Call-Back: That hilarious opening scene of Marco finding the Hades Girl Eurydice figurine and falling in Love at First Sight with her? In chapters 21-23, we find out that Marco became a Broken Ace after his Parental Substitute Bernardo died saving his life after a teenage Marco tried to take one of Bernardo's contracts and got in over his head. Finding Eurydice, who in the series is an Anti-Nihilist, shocked him out of the abyss and reminded him that Bernardo had wanted him to live a normal life and be happy.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Viviana and Andre are ultimately able to convince the Italian government that Marco poses no threat to anyone anymore, and they stop pursuing him, while Marco and Gregorio defy their former employer and he gives up on getting them to come back.
- Fun with Acronyms: Marco is nicknamed "T.O.", short for "The Oracle of Florence". In Japan this gets backronymed to "Top Otaku" by his new friends in the Eurydice fandom, who don't know he's a former assassin.
- Imaginary Love Triangle: Viviana is opposed to yakuza underboss Mei's one-sided Best Her to Bed Her-style pursuit of Marco, because she's a Yaoi Fangirl who ships him with the third member of their doujinshi circle, Andre. She also sees Marco's ruggedly handsome male friend Gregorio (another ex-mafioso) as a potential competitor to her ship.
- Mr. Fanservice: Marco is Tall, Dark, and Handsome and fairly regularly gets Shirtless Scenes showing off his highly defined musculature. No wonder Viviana has shipping fantasies of him.
- Occidental Otaku: The entire main cast except for Gregorio:
- Marco discovers the joys of Magical Girl anime completely by accident when he targets an Italian Eurydice fanboy and falls in love with his merch.
- Viviana is thrilled to get to pursue Marco to Italy because she's a Yaoi Fangirl with a huge collection of Boys' Love manga. She's also already a Eurydice fan, though she's mostly after its male lead.
- Andre isn't initially, but discovers he has a lot of fun making a Eurydice doujin with Marco and Viviana and gets as involved with the fandom as they are.
- Red Baron: Marco is feared in Italy as "the Oracle of Florence" who kills his targets without fail.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story:
- One of the gag chapters featuring Marco's kitten, Yakuza, has Marco pursuing a cockroach across his apartment for days, only for it to run in front of Yakuza, who nails the thing first try.
- Chapter 25 has Marco, Viviana, Andre, and Gregorio all playing an MMORPG together. They craft a super-rare Power-Up Food for a boss battle and are all set with a Heroic Second Wind to take it down after nearly wiping... when Marco fat-fingers his attempt to throw a bomb and causes a Total Party Kill on the spot.
- Shout-Out: Viviana's introductory chapter has a panel describing how she first fell in love with an anime character at age 10—the character in question clearly being Ash Ketchum with a black bar over his eyes. The same panel depicts Ryoma Echizen from The Prince of Tennis as one of her later faves.
- Show Within a Show: Hades Girl Eurydice is a Magical Girl anime series that seems to have become a pretty big success in the manga's version of Earth: there's even a movie and soundtrack concerts.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In the final chapter when Marco's former boss tries to force him to come back:The Don: How can you even think to cut ties with us for the sake of such childish amusement!? You've got one choice in life, and that's to walk the shadows with us! You're the same as us! That's just who you are!
Marco: Who I am? I'm going to live my life enjoying what I love, and die with a smile on my face. If you envy me for that, then just be like me. - Take That, Audience!: The series mostly revolves around affectionately poking fun at anime otaku fandom, from doujinshi conventions and cosplay to the Serious Business that is merch collection.
- That Man Is Dead: After their final confrontation, Marco's former mafia boss decides "the Oracle of Florence is dead", and that man is "just some 'otaku'."
- Yaoi Fangirl: Viviana collects Boys' Love manga and ships Marco with Andre once they become friends. This causes her to try to become a Shipping Torpedo when female yakuza underboss Mei falls for Marco.
