Fox Spirit Manga

Kanokon Vol. 1 (Rin Yamaki, Comic Alive/Seinen)

I went in to this expecting the worst but for a sleaze series, it’s actually above average. Kouta is a high school student who has just moved to the city from out in the country. He’s informed by a fellow student, named Chizuru, who wishes to meet with him in private. Chizuru turns out to be inhuman fox spirit that shockingly can’t help but fall for Kouta and his country smell. This throws the two of them spinning into both action sequences, embarrassing public moments, and of course, lots of fan service.

So the premise is about as lame as they come but there are two reasons I didn’t mind reading this. First, the scene where Kouta gets engulfed by Chizuru’s warmth and the two of them subsequently become one entity really rubs the reader’s noses in the intimacy aspect of their relationship. Secondly, there are the scenes where we see Chizuru’s negative influence on Kouta’s morality, admitting the troubling flip side of all that fan service.

Truthfully, I would have enjoyed these scenes a lot more if I had found the characters to be realistic or even likable, which is a rare complaint for me. Even the nerdy, outspoken girl who also seems to like Kouta is disturbingly unlikable. It’s like, can we even really blame Kouta for choosing the hot fox girl over some annoying human?

Mature Manga (II)

Bradherley’s Coach (Hiroaki Samura, Manga Erotics F/Seinen)

This is the most difficult comic I’ve read yet. For that reason, I was hesitated to discuss it openly but I’d like to read more manga that deal with dark and disturbing situations. Well that and I’d also like to read more historical manga. I’m not giving away any of the important details, so just on a high level, this volume consists of a number of short stories revolving around people who are affected by a secret horrific social program. For instance, the first story is told from a victim’s point of view, another from a friend of a victim who never finds out what really happened, as well as from the point of view of some others who are on the victimizing side. While reading through this, the desire for people who know about the program and the uninformed to somehow connect becomes unbearable. And of course, these feelings are further enforced structurally through the isolated story lines.

It’s interesting how the extreme set up allows for the easy use of blatant good guys and bad guys yet they never arrive. We never meet the man responsible for the program, we only hear about him briefly and indirectly. One particularly chilling scene describes how he “repented” for his crimes. Similarly, the closest thing we get to a hero is this vague representation of war. Probably the most disturbing thing about this series was the way the program was fueled, on dreams. The victims were only tricked because of their dreams to become famous performers. The perpetrator, however, had already obtained his dream of being wealthy and powerful but it was slowly crumbling and he thought the program would sustain it.

Mature Manga (I)

Gantz Vol. 1 (Hiroya Oku, Young Jump/Seinen)

So it seems that the two big selling points for this series are the fan service and the gory violence. I didn’t feel that this volume indulged in either of these. There are two instances of fan service here. The first, is the in the opening scene where our teenage protagonist Kei, while waiting for his subway train to arrive, is lusting after a model featured in a magazine. The reader is forced to acknowledge the shallowness of Kei’s attitude towards the model when he’s interrupted by an old woman that he rudely brushes off.

Kei then notices his childhood friend, Masatu, on the platform. They’re soon killed together. But rather than dying, they’re transported to a strange room. I liked how the author didn’t back away from making these encounters with past acquaintances awkward while not dismissing them completely. This second point is most clearly made when Masatu admits that Kei is still his inspiration to be a good and strong person.

The other example of fan service comes in the form of another arrival to the room: we get to watch a naked girl get physically reconstructed in ugly detail. I felt that sucked any real eroticism out of the scene. Once a group of recently deceased people have formed in the room, they’re told by a mysterious ball to seek out and kill a strange looking alien. It almost seemed like the ball had made a link between the grotesque level of fan service and the hit mission.

The majority of the group disturbingly goes along with the murder mission, all while rationalizing it by pretending it’s just a game or a TV show. Kei, however, is only interested in scoring with the girl so he slips away from the group and thus doesn’t get directly involved. Masatu, being the almost annoyingly noble savior, sees through the group think and tries to save the alien.

This isn’t the first time that Masatu had done something like this but it was the first time it didn’t come across as being mostly bad. Earlier in the real world he had helped a fallen drunk off the subway tracks but got himself and his friend killed in the process. And earlier back in the room, he saved the girl from being raped by a yakuza type. However after defeating the yakuza, she’s temporarily in his control and as such, he’s able to deliver an indirect threat to her himself.