Weekly Recon: Yen Press Edition

Sometimes the shortest shipping lists pose the greatest hazard to one’s fiscal well-being. Take this week, for example: of the twelve titles below, I fully intend to purchase eight. Whoever decided that Gon, Dororo and the Dayan Collection should be released on the same date clearly intended to send me to my financial doom. David Welsh has already urged readers to check out these three titles (as well another solid sci-fi thriller, Alive: The Final Evolution), so I’ll simply point you to Precocious Curmudgeon with a hearty endorsement: What he said!

This week’s column focuses on three brand-new series from Yen Press: Kaze no Hana, a story about an amnesiac teen who may possess extraordinary powers—if only she could remember her past; Kieli, a manga about a girl who sees ghosts; and Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro, a story about a mysterious pilgrim who travels with a coffin strapped to her back.

SHIPPING THIS WEEK:
Air Gear, Vol. 8 (Del Rey)
Alive: The Final Evolution, Vol. 4 (Del Rey)
Aventura, Vol. 2 (Del Rey)
Cy-Believers, Vol. 1 (Go! Comi)
Dayan Collection Books: Dayan’s Birthday, Vol. 1 (Dark Horse)
Dayan Collection Books: Thursday Rainy Party, Vol. 2 (Dark Horse)
Dayan Collection Books: White Eurocka, Vol. 3 (Dark Horse)
Dayan Collection Books: Chibikuro Party, Vol. 4 (Dark Horse)
Dororo, Vol. 1 (Vertical, Inc.)
Gon, Vol. 4 (CMX)
Warriors, Vol. 3: Warriors Return (Tokyopop/Harper Collins)
Witchblade Takeru Manga, Vol. 1 (Image/Top Cow)

Kaze no Hana, Vol. 1

By Ushio Mizta and Akiyoshi Ohta
Yen Press, 200 pp.
Rating: Teen

Kaze no Hana is a textbook example of that most basic of shonen genres: seemingly ordinary teen discovers that he or she is, in fact, the only one capable of saving the world. The ordinary teen in question is Momoka, a high school student who suffers from amnesia after losing her parents in a fiery car crash. When Momoka is summoned to her relatives’ home in the distant city of Mitsurugi, she makes an incredible discovery: she is one of eight guardians chosen to protect Mitsurugi from Kishimi, a vengeful demon sealed beneath the local temple. If Momoka fails to master her powers, said demon will break free and upset the balance between the real and the shadow worlds. Making her dilemma more acute is her own ineptitude; try as she might, she can’t even remove her sword from its sheath, let alone dispatch the susami (petty demons) that prey on Mitsurugi’s citizens.

Though much of the backstory is related through conversations, the narrative unfurls at a decent clip, seldom bogging down in the kind of minutiae that can make shonen series such a chore to read. The story never settles into an interesting groove, however, as the wafer-thin characterizations and so-so artwork do little to make the basic premise more interesting. None of the characters rise above the level of type: the klutzy heroine, the rude but tender-hearted male love interest, the humorless female authority figure. The characters are awkwardly drawn, with razor-sharp chins and oversized limbs; they seem almost crude in comparison with the backdrops and the monsters, which are rendered in considerable detail. Furthermore, there’s an oddly flat quality to the artwork, despite the cinematic use of perspective; all of the characters appear to float above the picture plane, rather than occupy three-dimensional space. The bottom line: Kaze no Hana is OK, but nothing special.

Volume one of Kaze no Hana is available now.

Kieli, Vol. 1

Story by Yukako Kabei, Art by Shiori Teshirogi
Yen Press, 192 pp.
Rating: Older Teen

As I read the promotional copy for Kieli, which explained that its title character “sees ghosts,” an ability that makes this fourteen-year-old girl “a bit of an outcast at her boarding school,” I felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to sing:

People,
People who see dead people,
Are the luckiest people in the world.

Kieli sounded like just another manga about a teen who communes with spirits. Thankfully, Kieli proved far more interesting than its all-too-familiar set-up suggested.

The story is set on a distant planet that looks suspiciously like fin-de-siecle Paris or Vienna with its elegant cathedrals and petticoat-clad schoolgirls. Eighty years ago, this unnamed planet’s inhabitants created the ultimate weapon: The Undying, a race of nearly indestructible soldiers fashioned from the corpses of fallen comrades. These undead soldiers played a pivotal role in ending decades of warfare, only to find themselves the object of an extermination campaign spearheaded by the Church. After a brief prologue explaining the plight of The Undying, we meet Kieli, a plucky schoolgirl who sees (and keeps company with) ghosts. While wandering off-campus, she bumps into Harvey, a brusque young man who also has the same ability. Kieli attempts to befriend him without realizing that Harvey is, in fact, one of the few Undying to have escaped detection by the Church. As she begins to piece together his story, she faces a choice: should she join Harvey on his quest to honor a fellow soldier’s dying wish, or remain at her boarding school?

True, the Spirit Seer and the Sole Survivor of a Persecuted Race are stock manga characters. But Yukako Kabei and Shiori Teshirogi have fleshed out Kieli and Harvey into fully realized players in a compelling, beautifully illustrated sci-fi drama. Each page is masterfully composed, striking the right balance between atmospheric detail and clarity. I had two minor reservations about volume one: first, the lengthy recaps at the beginning of every chapter, which stall the narrative momentum, and second, the rather sophomoric musings about organized religion. Granted, these voiceovers are meant to help us understand Kieli better, but they read like freshman glosses on Nietzsche rather than genuine interior monologues, and might have been cut. Still, these are minor criticisms of a very promising series—one that I intend to continue reading.

Volume one of Kieli is available now.

Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro, Vol. 1

By Satoko Kiyuduki
Yen Press, 124 pp.
Rating: Teen

Don’t be fooled by the kawaii cover: Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro is a melancholy little book. The story focuses on Kuro, a somewhat masculine young woman on a pilgrimage to find the witch who inflicted a mysterious curse on her. Everywhere she goes, Kuro cuts a dramatic figure, wearing heavy black clothing, a Pilgrim hat, and a custom-sized coffin, which she straps to her back. Though she begins her journey with only a talking bat for a companion, she soon adds two members to her traveling “family”: Nijuku and Sanju, a pair of genetically engineered nekomimi whose creator was brutally murdered.

Kuro’s pilgrimage is related in 4-koma (four panel) style. Most of the images are black and white, with full-color pages marking the beginning of each chapter. The four-panel format imposes a certain rhythm on the material that occasionally makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro a little too talky; I found myself wishing that Satoko Kiyuduki had allowed her spiky, expressive artwork to play a more prominent role in the storytelling. But the format also frees her from the constraints of a linear narrative, allowing the story to unfold in a less schematic, more relaxed fashion. The predominant mood is wistful bordering on elegiac; Kuro is always mindful that Nijuku and Sanju are too naïve to understand what befell their creator, and worries what will happen to them at the end of their journey. She, too, faces an uncertain future, as her body is slowly consumed by a unexplained illness.

The jacket copy promises “all the whimsy of the most memorable fairy tales,” but I think that misses the point—if anything, Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro explores some of the darker, more psychologically complex issues raised by the uncensored versions of “Cinderella” and “Little Red Riding Hood” rather than their more whimsical aspects. To be sure, the somber mood is lightened by plenty of broad comedy as various characters mistake Kuro for a vampire, a demon, a gravedigger, or, worse still, a boy. But even these comedic moments are tinged with sadness: Kuro often finds herself cast out of towns, even after rendering their citizens valuable services.

Ultimately, it’s this mixture of melancholy and humor that makes Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro such a compelling read. The story never succumbs to mawkishness or easy sentiment, yet at the same time, it dares to tug a little at the heartstrings. Not everyone will find the book’s odd tone to their liking, especially those in search of a breezy riff on Western fairy tales. But for those in search of something a little more thought-provoking–the kind of story that lingers in your mind after you’ve finished reading it–I highly recommend Kuro.

Volume one of Shoulder-a-Coffin, Kuro will be available on May 6th.