Merry Month of Shojo: VS.

CMX's library never fails to surprise me, even after all these years.  Their library was filled with interesting little shojo series like this.

VS. (Vasasu), by Keiko Yamada.  First published in 1999 and first published in North America in 2006.

PLOT:

Reiji is an incredibly talented violinist who is driven to succeed so that he can save himself and his sister from their abusive father.  His playing is technically accomplished, but often lacking in emotion.  Thus, his teacher calls upon the assistance of Mitsuko, a former student and violin prodigy whose career was cut short by an accident.  The two of them are frequently at odds, as Mitsuko tries to find a way to connect with Reiji while Reiji fights to save his sister before it is too late.

STORY:

It would be easy to dismiss VS. as what happens when you combine Your Lie In April with Nodame Cantabile, but I don't think that a completely fair comparison.  It's not just the fact that VS. is much older than both of those series, but neither of them could ever dream of reaching the heights of pure concentrated melodrama that this manga hits.

Every plot point is tooled for maximum drama and the broadest, loudest emotion possible, be it Reiji's anger at the world, Mitsuko's rebelliousness, or the sheer amount and degree of abuse Reiji's father heaps upon his family.  It's all so exaggerated that it verges upon comical at times, yet what kept me from dismissing VS. outright was the equally deep well of passion beneath it all.

Music is such a hard thing to capture in manga form; you can describe it all you want and draw someone playing it intensely, but without that audio element something is still lost in translation.  Yet I think Yamada did a good job at communicating the passion Reiji and Mitsuko share for music in spite of that limitation.  Much of Mitsuko's technique as a teacher involves going over the history and emotion behind the compositions Reiji learns, and that context goes a long way towards getting that same feeling across to the reader.  There's also a genuine sweetness in the relationship between Reiji and his sister Miruka, even if Miruka herself is mostly a sickly sweet plot device.  I just wish that Yamada could turn down the metaphorical volume on the melodrama around it to let those moments of passion and gentle emotion shine.

ART:

The artwork here is just as extra as the story itself.  The characters look like they could have come from a decade earlier, with their big hair, pointy chins, and big eyes.  Yamada makes uses of some dark, dramatic inking for some of the climatic moments, and there's a liveliness and passion that seems to be soaked into every panel.  The panels themselves tend to be small and choppy and put together in equally messy, over-the-top ways, but it's an approach that I would dare say fits the material well.  

RATING:

If you want a wild shojo melodrama about music, then you need to make a point of hunting down VS.  It's not an immortal classic, but its moments of sincerity and passion and outrageous tone kept me constantly entertained.

This series was published by CMX.  This series is complete in Japan with 7 volumes.  All 7 volumes were released and are currently out of print.