Holiday Review: DAI DARK

Of course, you can work with horrific ideas and make them fun and charming.  Just look at this series, for example.

DAI DARK (Dai Daku), by Q Hayashida.  First published in 2019 and first published in North America in 2021.

PLOT:

Zaha Sanko is just a teen boy, but it is said that anyone who possesses his bones will be granted any wish they please.  Zaha has no idea how this curse was put upon him, but together with his backpack-like associate Avakian he will use the powers of the dark flesh to find the answer and defend himself.  Along the way he'll meet a woman who feasts upon the souls of the dead, a three-headed space pirate and savor the goodness of a meatball spaghetti sandwich.

STORY:

Dorehodoro is one of more glaring oversights on my "need to read" list, but if it's anything like this series then I totally understand why Hayashida's works have had such a cult following for so long.

A lot of it has to do with Zaha and Avakian themselves.  Zaha is basically an overgrown kid under his mask and ragged robes.  He's no push-over, but he's the kind of person who's always eager to make a friend and enjoy some good food.  Avakian is a little less well-sketched as a personality at this point, but he works as the grown-up in this situation.  He's the one who guides and protects Zaha and tries (as best as possible) to keep him focused.  I also have to give a shout-out to Shimizu Death, who managed to steal every scene they were in spite of their formidable appearance.

There are some surface similarities with Dorehodoro.  After all, both ostensibly have a plot that revolves around a guy trying to remove a curse placed upon him, surrounded by an eccentric cast of characters and an appreciation for good food.  Dai Dark adds a sci-fi twist to its own magical world and it's a combination that works far better than you can possibly imagine.

ART:

Hayashida's art is, for lack of a better word, grody.  It's not that it's bad - far from it! - but instead that everything here is so fleshy, dirty, and bizarre-looking and that the hasty, unpolished quality of her linework adds to that aesthetic.  Yet her characters look so wholesome, with the tall, strapping, milk-fed look of Midwestern farmhands.  Her panels are often densely packed with detail and hatching, but she breaks things up with some delightful reaction shots.  It's definitely not an art style that everyone will vibe with but it's so unique and crucial to the setting that Dai Dark would lose so much if it had more conventional, polished art.

RATING:

Dai Dark might be a story about intergalactic necromancers, but it's also the most wonderfully, weirdly enchanting manga I've read thus far.  It had me at "meatpswich" and never let me go.  May this series be as cancellation-proof as its predecessor.

This series is published by Seven Seas.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 4 volumes available.  3 volumes have been published and are currently in print.

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