By Aki
Digital Manga Publishing, 232 pp.
Rating: Young Adults (16+)

An unnamed kingdom owes its prosperity to two things: the King, a male who leads and handles the daily running of the kingdom, and the Songstresses, women whose voices and nightly songs bring the kingdom protection and prosperity. For centuries it has been this way, but now something has happened to change that. The King has only a daughter, and one of the Songstresses has a son.

Each Songstress lives in a large tower with a small town nearby. Ostensibly, each town takes care of its respective Songstress, but, in truth, each is kept a prisoner in her tower. Due to the importance they play in their nation’s defense, the Songstress is almost never allowed to leave the area, and the desperate need for a female heir often leads to some rather unfortunate events. Maria and Kain are the children of a Songstress, and while Maria is her mother’s heir apparent, Kain is raised to be her protector and instilled with a strong sense of mistrust towards the townspeople. They’re raised in virtual isolation until the mayor’s son, Thomas, meets the duo. Sheltered from the ugly truth behind the treatment of the Songstress, he naïvely and innocently attempts to befriend the siblings and slowly begins to fall for Maria. Kain is immediately distrusting and suspicious of Thomas’ motives, creating tension between the young trio.

As the years pass, Kain is forced to face the fact that his anger and distrust towards Thomas stems not just from his upbringing, but from fear and jealousy at being replaced in Maria’s life. Feeling useless and awkward at home he sets forth and roams the land until he has a fateful encounter with another Songstress. Suffice to say, things do not end well. Throughout the tale, Aki does a fantastic job handling the emotions and motivations of the various characters which bubble beneath the surface. The relationship between Thomas and the Maria comes across as warm and genuine, which makes its outcome all the more tragic. It’s a tangled tale of emotions, desires and tradition which I found surprisingly touching and moving at times.

Also included in this volume is “Darika.” It’s a rather odd yet haunting tale about a young soldier given one of the worst assignments possible and the conflict that develops from his desire to fulfill his duty and further his career, and his desire to escape what’s essentially an unending cycle of betrayal and slaughter. The whole story hinges on a rather bizarre concept and one imagines that there are better ways to handle the whole situation.

Aki’s artwork throughout the book is lovely but very sparse. The characters’ faces tend to look alike, but Aki is able to vary it up with some beautifully done clothing. Sadly, the majority of the story takes place against a stark white background, giving the entire thing the odd disconnected feeling of a half-remembered dream. One one hand, this does make getting a sense of place and time difficult, but at the same time it does help reinforce the haunting nature of the tales. Another thing that’s immediately noticeable is the odd flow of the word balloons in several places. For the most part, they’re easy enough to follow, but every now and then the dialogue suddenly switches to a zigzag pattern, going from right to left, then moving diagonally down from the left to the right. It sounds confusing and was at first, but I quickly got the hang out of it and it ended up feeling surprisingly natural. Thankfully, there’s no real action to speak of, so the visual flow isn’t really impaired by the odd path the word bubbles take.

In the end, Utahime is not a feel-good manga, but it is a gripping and powerful read.

Utahime: The Songstress is available now.