The Merry Month of Manga Begins! Review: A DRUNKEN DREAM

Well, another year has passed here at the Manga Test Drive.  This May marks the third year I've been writing for this blog, and unlike the last time, I was able to do so without disappearing for weeks or months at a time due to burnout.  It's been a busy year and a relatively fruitful one.  Not only have views have been higher than ever, but very recently I discovered that The Manga Test Drive has fans in high places.

What you see there is the back of Volume 8 of Vertical's Knights of Sidonia, a back cover that happens to feature a quote from my previous review of the first volume.  You can only imagine my surprise and shock at the sight.  There in front of me were my own words on a professionally published book! My humble little blog was getting the kind of prominent placement that's usually only reserved for major review sites and critics who are far more seasoned and professional than I.  I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't a total ego boost, but it's also a good reason to celebrate with a full month of manga reviews!  That's right - for every day in May, there will be a new review for everyone to enjoy!  So let's kick things off with a blast from manga's past.

A DRUNKEN DREAM AND OTHER STORIES, by Moto Hagio.  First published from 1970 - 2007, and first published in North America in 2010.

PLOT:

This anthology features a wide selection of stories from Hagio's career, ranging from some of her earliest works all the way to the 21st century.  Within are stories of children haunted by the choices of adults, love stories that carry throughout the ages, broken families, and much more, all from the pen of shoujo's most influential creators.

STORY:

As is the problem with so many manga anthologies, it's hard to do a concise summary of the book because there are so many of them collected here.  Fantagraphics, in conjunction with translator and longtime Hagio champion Matt Thorn, chose these stories to introduce not only manga fans, but also comic fans to Hagio's works, and I can say that they chose exceptionally well.  A Drunken Dream does a great job of showing off how Hagio's art and writing have evolved over the years, and while the subject matter may vary wildly, the themes within are all still very relevant and touching.

It's rather appropriate that the earliest stories here are also the most immature in both story and choice of characters.  Most of these focus on innocent children whose lives are affected by the cruel adults and broken families that others try so valiantly to hide from them.  This sort of melodrama was something of a tradition in the early days of shoujo, where the reader was meant to sympathize with the noble suffering of these impossibly good and saintly children, but these days such melodrama comes off as cheap, even a little ridiculous.  Still, as the stories progress through time, we see Hagio's storytelling evolve from talkative melodramas to nearly silent and highly metaphorical works. 

Even from her early days, she was not afraid to tackle some very heavy and complicated themes.  One great example of that is "Iguana Girl," a story about a young woman whose whole life and outlook have been colored by her mother's constant verbal abuse who nonetheless manages to find a sense of acceptance for herself, her lot in life, and even towards her terrible mother.  "Angel Mimic" starts off with the heroine trying to commit suicide, who also must deal with not only depression, but the prospect of an abortion.  "The Silver Willow" is all about death and letting go of loved ones.  In the hands of lesser writers, such topics could become ridiculously dramatic or moralizing, but Hagio is able to weave them deftly into the story and strives to help the reader understand and sympathize with her protagonists and their choices.

There are also a lot of stories that deal with much more simple matters - lost love, death, regret, and so forth.  These too are handled with the same degree of seriousness and sympathy, and some of these rank amongst the best of the entire book, such as "Marie, Ten Years Later" (a story of a friendship torn apart by jealousy and suicide) as well as the titular tale (a love story that transcends both time and gender set amongst the stars of the far-flung future).  The latter is familiar territory for those lucky enough to read the Moto Hagio stories that Viz published nearly 20 years ago, and it also called to mind the works of fellow Showa 29 artist Keiko Takemiya.

If you've ever been curious to read her works or wanted to get some understanding of why Moto Hagio is considered one of the great names of shoujo, then A Drunken Dream is a great place to start.  It lets the reader see just how much she advanced as a writer over the decades, and while the details of each story may differ greatly, the themes are both affecting and timeless.

ART:

This anthology also lets the reader see how Hagio's art style evolved over time.  Not surprisingly, the earliest stories are the ones that look the most rough.  There are loads of jewel-eyed children with flowing hair that move through their worlds with the grace of a dancer, but they're drawn more flatly and crudely than similar figures in Hagio's later stories.  Still, there's a surreal quality to some of these that's very typical of 1970s shoujo, and I'll admit that I find myself drawn to the ghostly silhouettes and swirling backgrounds of her early works.  Over time, though, there's a far more confident and grounded quality to her work, and she starts to draw a lot more grown men and women with a wider variety of looks and body types, even if they never quite lose those jeweled eyes.

The biggest visual highlight of the book is also the only one in color, the titular story.  Here Hagio took a cue from the classical setting and makes her leads look something like Greek statuary come to life, which stands in contrast to the sci-fi content of the story.  The color adds a sense of warmth to the present of the story, as it desaturates into sepia tones during the flashbacks accented only with the occasional flash of red.  This warmth and visual distinction between the two worlds is something that would have been lost had it been printed in black and white.  The closest rival is has is "The Willow Tree," which is told almost entirely in silence.  In it, a woman stands vigil under a willow tree, watching the seasons and years go past, and it manages to communicate so much with such a simple montage. Of course, it's helped by the fact that Hagio draws such fantastic backgrounds, ones that are full of detail and life.  She's also very good with panel and page composition, and every work is framed as beautifully as a painting.  It's just a visually stunning book, and a fine testament to Hagio's skill as an artist.

RATING:

A Drunken Dream deserves to sit on the shelves of anyone who loves good shoujo.  It's a great introduction to one of shoujo's great women, one that is full of beauty and emotion that anyone can connect to regardless of age.

This volume was published by Fantagraphics.  It is currently in print.

Review: NIJIGAHARA HOLOGRAPH

While the major manga publishers are off looking the next big hit, the smaller, more independent publishers continue to focus on those manga which are too old or too alternative for mainstream readers.  One of the leading companies on this front is Fantagraphics, and today we're looking at possibly the most anticipated manga license of theirs from this year, as well as yet another one-volume wonder.

NIJIGAHARA HOLOGRAPH (Nijigahara Horograph), by Isio Asano.  First published in 2003, and first published in North America in 2014.

PLOT:
The children in Suzuka's new class all seem to know about a monster in a tunnel near their school.  Rumors say that people have died down there, and that the monster is the reason that one of their classmates is in a coma.  As time moves on, the children and teachers grow up, but that tunnel remains the focus for a web of unhappiness that still connects the members of that class.  It seems that the events from those days are determined to haunt Suzuka and his classmates well into adulthood, and everything seems to bring them back to that same mysterious tunnel.

STORY:
In many ways, this book reminds me of another Asano work, What a Wonderful World!.  Both focus on disaffected young people who find themselves dealing with supernatural forces.  Both have the same sort of odd, affected air that reminds me more strongly of independent American comics than your everyday manga.  There is one notable difference though - Nijigahara Holograph scrambles its timeline so thoroughly that it becomes too obtuse for its own good.

The story is told in bits and pieces, shifting from character to character and from one place in time to another over the course of roughly a decade.  Now, there's nothing wrong with shaking up your story's timeline to force the reader to reexamine the way they approach the story or to create a sense of uncertainty about the reader's perception of events.  Done well, it can be incredibly effective and unique.  Just like any other technique, though, it can be taken too far, where the story becomes so scrambled that it's hard to make tails or heads of anything.  This was my biggest issue with the story - it's not that I think it's badly written, just confusingly told.  Hell, I wasn't even aware that there were supposed to be alternate timelines in the story until I read the description on the back cover. 

While I may not be crazy for the way the story is told, the story itself is well written.  That being said, it is far from a lighthearted one, considering that our various cast members deal with bullying, suicide, broken families, failing marriages, attempted rape, and death at one point or another. Nobody here is a perfect hero nor a complete villain, and few bad deeds get any sort of punishment.  The conflict that the characters feel, whether it's guilt for their actions or just a need for focus and inspiration, are relatable and realistic.  The supernatural elements fit perfectly fine with the darker or more mundane elements because Asano never stops to explain where these mysterious glowing butterflies come, why they are spreading, and why they always seem to gather around this mysterious and troubled aquaduct.  It doesn't even go so far as the point out the obvious 'butterfly effect' metaphor between the events and choices of the cast and the actual butterflies, letting the reader put that one together on their own.  Still, that just ties back to the story being told in an overly obtuse manner.  Nijigahara Holograph is an effective and thoughtful mood piece.  I just wish it was a little more open and easy to follow.

ART:
Asano's remains much the same as his previous works, which means it retains much of the same high qualities.  His character designs are almost cutely rounded and caricature-like, which does serve as an oddly cute contrast to the seriousness and disaffectedness of the story.  Still, they remained rooted in reality, much like the lovingly detailed apartments, schoolrooms, and waterways that our story takes place in.  He tends to draw a lot of long, squat panels, but he makes up for that with by employing a lot of cinematic angles and a few well-placed, full-page spreads.  All together, it adds up to some slightly unusual and occasionally haunting visuals.

RATING:
Nijigahara Holograph is many things at once.  It's odd, it's unsettling, and yet it's fascinating.  It covers a lot of themes and ideas that Asano has covered in previous works, but it's presented in a way that makes it kind of inscrutable.  I don't see this book turn a lot of people into Asano fans, but those who already are will likely find a lot to enjoy and ponder.

This book is published by Fantagraphics.  It is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!

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Review: HEART OF THOMAS (with bonus podcast!)

First of all, I recently appeared on the latest episode of The Five Point Podcast.  I've long been a fan of it, and it was fun to get to participate in one for once (and I hope to do more of them in the future).  So, if you're curious as to what I actually sound like, listen to me give my thoughts on Yamada's First Time:


Five Point Podcast Episode 55: Yamada's First Time by fivepointpodcast


With that done and said, on to the review!  Once again, I'm looking at another member of the Showa 29/Forty-Niners group of mangaka.  Instead of sci-fi, though, this is more of an intimate drama.  It's no less influential than To Terra was, though, and its subject matter and presentation reflect this. 

HEART OF THOMAS (Thomas no Shinzo), by Moto Hagio.  First published in 1974, and first published in North America in 2013.

PLOT:

In early 20th century Germany, at an all-male academy, a young boy has died.  Thomas Werner was loved by much of the student body, and his death (presumed to be an accident) is a terrible shock to them.  Only one person, the stoic and reserved Juli, knows the truth: Thomas's death was a suicide.  Juli knows because Thomas wrote him a suicide note that also served as a confession of love to Juli, and Juli finds himself loaded with guilt over Thomas's actions.  His guilt only increases when a new boy, Erich, comes to the school.  Erich is a brilliant child and a major mama's boy, but he is also the spitting image of Thomas, and both Juli and Erich hate the baggage such a connection brings them.  Over time, Juli, Erich, and Juli's roommate Oskar must come to terms with not only Thomas's death, but the guilt they all bear from their own pasts.

STORY:

This book is not so much an emotional journey as it is an emotional saga.  It's the sort of story that could have only been found in 1970s shoujo, the sort of story that is saturated in repression and every sort of heightened emotion.  Heart of Thomas is all at once haunting, sensitive, and deeply tragic without ever descending into melodrama, and it's easy for me to see how this story became a classic.

As mentioned before, Hagio was one of the members of the storied Showa 29 group, and in many ways she could be considered the grandmother of boys' love as a genre.  Heart of Thomas was not her first shonen-ai work, but it is still considered one of the groundbreaking works of the genre.  As the incredibly informative essay by translator Matt Thorn explains, Hagio was inspired by the French film Les Amities Particulaires.  In it, two French schoolboys fall in love only to be forced apart by their teachers, and one of them ends up committing suicide.  Hagio took that scenario and essentially turned on its ear for Heart of Thomas.  Here the suicide isn't the culmination of a tragic romance, but the catalyst that sets things into motion, an act that haunts the main characters for much of the story.

While Thomas may be the titular character, the story is really about three of the boys left behind after his death: Juli, Oskar, and Erich.  While not all of them knew Thomas, his death ends up being the key to unlocking and moving past the guilt that each boy bears in his own life.  Juli looks and acts prim and proper, but this is merely the front he presents to others to hide all the guilt he bears over Thomas, his own family, and a terrible incident with an older student.  Oskar is more laid-back and personable, often serving as advisor and mediator to his fellow students, but he too is caught in a family drama where no one is quite willing to speak the truth.  Finally there is Erich, who is a brilliant student but a fragile and sensitive boy.  He's obsessed with his mother in a fashion that verges upon incestuous, and he only wishes to return to her so that things can go back to the way they were.  He wants no part of his mother's new husband, his schoolmates fawning over his looks, or everyone connecting him to a dead boy he never even knew.  All of them are affected by Thomas, be it in life or in death, and ironically it is that same death which allows them to move on with their lives and begin the long, tough process of growing up.

While this work is considered a pioneer in shonen-ai, the actual homoerotic content is fairly subtle.  There's no hardcore action to be found here, and no one in particular identifies as gay.  Instead we have a lot of talking about feelings, emotional outburst, and the occasional tearful kiss.  Honestly, Hagio's approach to the story reminded me a lot of modern-day yuri.  They take similar approaches to relationships in that the emphasis is more on deep romantic longing instead of lustful desire.  There's a subtle implementation that these feelings are transitory, just the fleeting crushes of a bunch of kids that don't have a lot of heterosexual outlets.  It's even set in a single-sex school, although the notion of such places being hotbeds of homosexuality far predate this story.  Such notions don't diminish the intensity of the feelings and relationships on display, it might be a little jarring for those more used to more modern, explicit works.

The pacing here is slow and purposeful.  Hagio is more than content to let the emotion and mystery build bit by bit, day by day.  Little hints about the characters are dropped here and there, little flashes of memory pass by, and each one builds upon the reader's knowledge of our three main characters.  Admittedly, Juli's inner monologue gets the most attention, but then as we learn he has the most guilt to bear.  He not only has the burden of Thomas's feelings, but also the guilt his family lays upon him for his parentage, guilt about his faith in God, and guilt from abuse at the hand of a former classmate. 
Juli tries so hard to keep his emotions contained and tries so hard to push away those that disturb his self-enforced calm, so of course it is his many fits and agonies that end up splashing across the page. While guilt and repression are common elements here, there's also a great emphasis on family secrets.  Between the three boys, they have to deal with their families hiding things like affairs, wrongful deaths, even physical and emotional abuse.   Still, Hagio keeps things hopeful - all these secrets and all this guilt might threaten to crush the boys' spirits, but once they actually start talking with others about it, they can start to find acceptance and forgiveness for themselves and others.

Heart of Thomas is an achingly beautiful romantic drama.  While the focus tends to be on internal torment versus external action, the thoughts and troubles of these three young men remain compelling and touching.  The story's sensitive approach to what was then a brand-new genre demonstrates just why this story became a classic.

ART:

Hagio's art is a shining example of 1970s shoujo art.  The character designs are pretty and slender with flowing hair and shiny, jewel-like eyes that seem to stare into the reader's soul.  Hagio doesn't put in a lot of period-specific details beyond the boys' wardrobes, with their fine, crisp suits, slender knotted ties, and long, boyish curls.  The thoughts of her characters are given shape in dramatic explosions of screentones, wind, fire, flowers, and ghostly silhouettes, layered behind the characters like so many drifting clouds.  There's also a fair bit of angelic imagery within them, which makes sense considering all the talk of death and guilt over one's sins.  There's an overall delicacy to Hagio's art which enhances the equally fragile, emotional tone of the story.  Even the few instances of coloring are delicate, mostly rendered in shades of magenta.

PRESENTATION:

This series is presented in a large hardbound volume which is as handsome as it is dense.  As mentioned before, there's a very informative essay after the story which does a great job at putting both Moto Hagio's career and Heart of Thomas in historical context.  It's mildly distracting that the essay reads right-to-left, considering that the manga itself is unflipped, but that's the only (and decidedly minor) complaint I have about this book.

RATING:
Major kudos have to be given to Fantagraphics for releasing this classic shoujo series to English speaking readers.  Heart of Thomas is beautiful, touching, romantic, tragic, and so much more.  It's got a hefty size and somewhat hefty pricetag, but it is worth every single penny.

This series is published by Fantagraphics.  This series is complete in 3 volumes, which are presented in a single omnibus.  It is currently in print.

You can purchase this volume and many more like it through RightStuf.com!