27 May, 2008

Family Complex

By Mikiyo Tsuda
DMP, 192 pp.
Rating: 13+

Sometimes when I complain to Hal Johnson about my mundane problems he mocks me, saying, “Oh no! My diamond shoes are too tight!” Family Complex is a one-shot filled with diamond-shoe-stories.

Akira Sakamoto is the only normal-looking kid in his family of beautiful people. The Sakamotos are stared at in public, as strangers whisper about Akira’s odd appearance in his fantastic clan. If the whole volume were about Akira’s mental trauma, it might be good – instead, Akira quickly realizes how much his family loves him and where he fits in over a single chapter.

The remainder of the chapters focus on other family members’ boring troubles – the elder sister is hot, but in a Takarazuka way. Akira’s older brother is constantly pursued by hundreds of girls and uses Akira on a fake date in order to pretend he’s gay (basically it’s an order of fujoshi, with extra fujoshi on the side). Ten-year-old Fuyuki Sakamoto has problems with pedophile flashers, but that’s way too much drama for this book, so Tsuda focuses on Fuyuki’s comical love life instead.

Tsuda’s Princess Princess nearly killed me. In both titles, Tsuda comes up with an interesting premise, and then totally drops the ball to focus on characters’ emotional inner lives, which are not nearly troubled enough to make for compelling reading.

Family Complex includes a long true-story chapter about one of Tsuda’s retinas detaching. This bonus story contains more conflict, more drama, and more risk than Tsuda’s fictional work! One morning Tsuda wakes up seeing “floaters.” She visits her local doctor who tells her to go to the emergency room, but Tsuda, a workaholic manga artist, does not realize the danger she’s in and goes home overnight to work some more. Thanks to the delay in treatment, Tsuda’s eye surgery is long and painful, and her recovery time is protracted.

You know what’s ten thousand times more interesting than a story about “My super-cute family loves me too much?” A story about the details of eye surgery! The eye surgery story was missing backgrounds and poorly drawn, but I’m willing to cut a lot of slack, because for god’s sake, she could have gone blind!

Tsuda also includes a few extra stories about hanging out with yaoi artist Eiki Eiki, and again, these shorts are way more interesting than Tsuda’s fictional stuff.

Both Tsuda and Eiki Eiki will appear at Yaoi Jamboree this year.

Family Complex is available now.

- Erin F.