Line

By Yua Kotegawa
ADV Manga, 168 pp.
Rating:16 +

This taut thriller by Yua Kotegawa is a potent reminder that good stories come in single volume packages too. Yes, there are mangaka who excel at spinning a yarn over 10, 20, or—if you’re Rumiko Takahashi—40 volumes, but many writers and artists would benefit from reading Kotegawa’s economical Line. There are few wasted panels or awkward moments of expository dialogue—he simply tosses us headlong into the action and takes us for a fun, slightly nasty thrill ride.

The story is basic. When Chiko, a seemingly ditzy schoolgirl, finds a cell phone on a train platform, she unwittingly becomes a pawn in a sick game. An unidentified person calls her again and again on this found phone, telling her the time and rough location of a person contemplating suicide; it’s up to Chiko to find these troubled souls and stop them. Aided only by her smart, athletic, and clinically calm classmate Bando, Chiko spends a harrowing night crisscrossing Tokyo to stop the carnage, unable to enlist adult assistance because—naturally—her unseen nemesis has warned her not to call the police.

Kotegawa builds suspense with consummate skill. Just when we think Chiko and Bando are about to gain the upper hand, another phone call sends our heroines scrambling to a different Tokyo neighborhood and a new crisis. The dialogue, too, captures their desperation, fear, and teenage sense of logic. (See earlier comment about enlisting the police’s help.) Kotegawa even exploits the kind of situations that normally test a reader’s good faith; just as we’re thinking, “Wouldn’t someone notice two scantily-clad fifteen year olds running through a fancy Tokyo shopping district?”, the police begin tailing Chiko and Bando.

The one-volume format does impose some constraints on Kotegawa that ultimately derail Line before it can reach a satisfactory conclusion. As we only see them in action and never in contemplation, Chiko and Bando feel two-dimensional. Even a third act revelation meant to demonstrate Chiko’s resolve and depth of character does little to remedy the impression that both girls are conceits rather than full-blown characters. And a recurring bit of fan service implying that Bando has a crush on her buxom pal feels as gratuitous as Chiko’s mid-volume costume change from school uniform to tight t-shirt and ridiculously short shorts. A teenage girl who doesn’t own a single pair of baggy sweatpants? Now that strains the bounds of credulity.

The bigger disappointment, however, is the ending. After nearly 140 pages of slam-bang storytelling, Kotegawa falls back on the oldest and most tired trick in the book: a voice-over telling us what happened after Chiko and Bando’s nocturnal ordeal. Worse still, that final plot twist is a letdown, leaving the reader with the impression that the preceding pages amounted to the proverbial tempest in a teapot. I’m not sure that extending the story over multiple volumes would have solved this problem, but it might have allowed Kotegawa to develop his unseen villain more fully, leading to a better denouement.

If you’ve been curious about Anne Freaks (also published by ADV Manga), Line makes a fine introduction to Yua Kotegawa’s crisp artwork, pedal-to-the-metal pacing, and macabre sense of humor.