By You Higuri
Go!Comi, 200 pp.
Rating: 16+

Marie Vetsera’s family may be small-time aristocrats, but her ambitions are anything but. When a chance encounter with an old book releases a demon named Seto, Marie is quick to put him to work—working to increase her odds of romance with Crown Prince Rudolph, that is. But all is not well in Austria, as the ailing emperor Franz Josef turns on his son and the country dissolves into political turmoil. Amidst Hapsburg infighting, assassination attempts and malicious supernatural entities, can Marie avoid her own bloody end?

Angel’s Coffin is a strange little one-volume story. It’s as if fantastic shojo has swallowed a history textbook, or perhaps the reverse holds true. Either way, Higuri employs a cast of real characters leading up to a real historical event to unusual effect—because nothing says “fun” like the Mayerling Incident and WWI, right? Wizened students of late Hapsburg history will know how this one turns out in the end, but Higuri’s supernatural twist adds an element of shojo-style spontaneity to the proceedings.

Despite creating some rather complex characters in a hurry, the limitations of compressing a fully formed story into a single volume put the brakes on the concept of character development. That said, the starting materials aren’t half bad; leading lady Marie is childishly unfortunate in all the right ways, Seto is inoffensively compassionate and Rudolph manages to be both pitiable and quite the creeper. (The man was—and is here too—married, after all.) While occasionally indulging in the usual shojo tropes, Higuri nonetheless takes a clear eyed and refreshingly blunt approach to the central relationship between Marie and Rudolph: in short, she was young, he was manipulative, and verdict is it was a poor idea. It’s certainly not the usual high school romance schlock, and astute shojo fans should take note.

Higuri’s art is notably devoid of the polygonal sparkle overdose that characterizes much of shojo, but an overall dearth of tone cuts down clutter even as it occasionally contributes to a feeling of emptiness. Most of the art remains firmly rooted in the realm of the pretty-but-unremarkable, but the occasional inspired angle or well done panel (a pen-and-ink Death astride a horse comes to mind here) bumps Higuri’s artistic status onto the top shelf of popular shojo manga artists.

Angel’s Coffin is unlikely to leave anyone agape in awe, but it is nonetheless an intriguing, unusual little read that’s a cut above the rest. It’s admittedly a romance at its heart, but plenty of politicking and a male narrator make the title decidedly approachable for both genders. Recommended to manga readers for overall value; recommended to history buffs for potential glee-causing scenes that may involve Magyars and/or Franz Josef I of Austria.

Angel’s Coffin is available now.