Wakusei Closet
Alone in the Planet

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Let me start this review with a shameless (although shameful) quote:

“Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really ... looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".”

Every writer is, in some way, a magician. And exactly as in a great magic trick, a writer's prestige is the hardest, most important part of his writing. A beginning can be sloppy, a middle can be messy, but if the ending is done right, then it'll definitely leave a mark.

After months of wait, I finally got my hands on the fourth volume of Wakusei Closet, which to my surprise and despair, turned out to be the last. Wakusei became quite easily one of my favorite manga series of 2020, it was the setting, the characters, and the overall writing that made it perfect, and there was absolutely nothing I could not like on it.

In the beginning of this review, I quoted a passage of the movie "The Prestige" to talk about magic as a metaphor to writing. But, in a way, writing a mysterious, fantastical story such as Wakusei Closet is by itself an actual magic trick. You don't know what is coming, heck, you don't even know what's going on right now, but you're itching to know. You've been caught, you're the spectator watching fixedly as Tsubana does her amazing work, juggling a curious art style with a curious setting, you can't even blink!

You know something is up, you can feel it, the first and second acts are done, there comes the third act and you're jumping from your seat. But then something happens, something you didn't expect: for some reason, that third important act was not the point, the prestige is actually a fourth, additional act! That moment, Tsubana brings you behind the table and reveal to you all there is to that amazing trick, the bird didn't vanish and appear somewhere else, there are two birds and one is dead.

You don't have to be a magician, or a writer, to recognize that the ability to create such a trick is incredible, but as a spectator, you feel something is not right. You feel like the kid on the first row, crying out loud because the cute bird is dead. You wanted to be fooled.

Wakusei Closet takes you to a dream world scared by bad dreams, and at last, throws you into a world of nightmare and bittersweet reality. Where there's no feeling bad or good, but only "empty."

At the end of the fourth volume, our author thanks the reader and kindly suggests another reading, since that would bring a new light to the story just read. And that's the whole point of a "The Prestige" quote. The Prestige is a mystery movie at its core, it is a magic trick, and when you get to the metaphysical third act of it, its prestige, you feel exactly as a kid seeing soap bubbles for the first time, you just can't get enough of it. For Wakusei Closet, on the other side, at least for me, the first read is more than enough.

You don't really want to know.

Wakusei Closet is very Lovecraft, very Junji Ito, very pure-type shoujo-ai, and very good. As other readers have formulated, it’s like Milk Closet or Coo’s World, but with a sensible plot. It is also very visually imaginative and not a small bit scary. You may notice tragedy listed for it in tags in some places - and it is not by chance.

Lovecraft stands for cosmic horror. The distant world which our characters are whisked off to is diffferent and hostile, with plenty of life and almost none of it kind to humans. Expect tentacles and parasites, invading and consuming, things not being accessible to human ... minds and death being the good fate. It seems like madness, but it has rules, just very cruel rules, not fully cogniscible to humans.

Ito is mentioned because of body horror, the freakish becoming painfully real, and the exploitation of vulnerabilities. Wakusei Closet attacks a whole set of human weaknesses – things we cannot control: sleep, infection, memory loss, unknown cosmos with other forms of life. But most of all the horror of the meat envelope we live in – the kids’ bodies here will be torn and distorted in many ways. It’s not indulgent, 98% not sexual (just some panties getting visible 2 times for the good reason of their wearer being eaten starting from their head), but terrible to behold because of the very primal disgust at seeing the familiar human form defiled.

And shoujo-ai happens because Tsubana likes to draw young pure plump girls in peril and love is the best motivator. All of the protagonists are kids and most of them are adorable girls, maybe even too honest and kind hearted. The main heroine feels affection towards the other schoolkid stuck on the titular alien planet and tries to save her – she has barely awakened to attraction though, so there isn't much in terms of romance. The strength of her feeling is conveyed through her actions and through the diary pages that appear once per chapter. It would be unrealistic for her to go to such lengths just out of humanitarian responisiblity, but an important love for a strong person in danger can move mountains. Through their relationship and a slow recovery of lost memories other kids enter the cast. Just don’t expect adults and don’t expect many of the kids having a chance to become ones.

Most surprisingly of all, there is a gripping plot with a mystery at its core, with clearly defined stakes, allies and enemies. There are moments of foreboding, as well as thrilling fighting scenes and heartfelt moments of reminiscence. I repeat: this here before you is a surrealistic bloody horror, but with a plot that is not only possible to follow but with one that will make you fidget at the edge of your seat. This deserves a badge. And it is what really makes it scary. Really, Tsubana’s writing is so strong. And what I like the most is that despite the many horrible events the core values behind the work are healthy human values, which makes immersion easier. The wrong events that happen are shown through writing as wrong, you don’t see the author savoring or gloating. (Though I am curious why Tsubana likes little girls for protagonists so much.)

The drawing style is peculiar and atmospheric. The weirder part is similar-looking almost symbolic girls with roundish features and very small feet. Alien landscapes, on the other hand, can hit very high levels of “realistic” detail. The art is methodical: there’s no hysteria to it, no dirty or torn lines – everything is clean, clearly readable, and very eery. Tsubana contrasts moe and horror expertly, is good with composition, and has a way with repetition of shapes. You see plants looking like weird tiny fractals around a road and know things are off. Going south. Very bad. Terrible. As some small eyes pop where they shouldn’t be and insect-like feelers emerge. I haven’t saved many pages, but consuming these drawings has been a delight.

Honestly, Wakusei Closet has so far been a rare treat, both thanks to the quality and because of the combination of themes I didn’t believe possible. The only reason I write about it in a restrained manner is because it’s scary to dive in. I am not a big fan of straight horror, y’see. But the main couple is gay here, and I, for once, am happy to encounter such a lovely nightmare fuel – so very fresh, engaging and well drawn. Thus I highly recommend Wakusei Closet to all who can handle horror.

I am amused by Tsubana sensei's creativity. In Mikake no Nijuusei, Tsubana-sensei used time machine to create a story of alternative reality that seems common, yet she didn't go to the direction as of what most of author go to. In Babel no Toshokan, she used word and library of Babel instead. And now in this series, she used another different alternative, lucid dream.

Despite the the fact that Wakusei closet's main character didn't find herself struck by a Truck-kun and reincarnated to a medieval fantasy, it can also be classified as an isekai manga. One day, the main character, Aimi, found herself on an unknown ... place where she saw a girl warned her to run away from a monster but it turned out that it was just a bad dream. But that dream felt so real she puts her thought to it. On the way to school with her classmates, she and friends saw a weird creature, of which they later call as "snake". And then one of his classmates, Tamura-kun, seems losing his consciousness and eaten by the snake and disappeared. When she fell asleep after school, she found herself on the same strange planet again and saw Tamura-kun's body with multiplied face that tried to attack her. But Flare - the girl she met before- managed to save her and later, they try to escape this strange planet in the dream. As the story progress, mysteries are revealed one by one and everything becomes clear on the last volume.

The interesting thing is that this simple appearing manga turns into a darker, more thrilling and more of a survival journey than most (if not all) isekai and "into game" story.

Similar to other Tsubana sensei's works, this manga has very few important characters -only Aimi and Flare.From the start of the series, we can know all about Aimi through presentation of the events and her psychology -her confusion and desperation- are also well explored. On the other hand, Flare is a part of the mystery of the manga. She at first could not remember anything except the fact that she was in hospital before finding herself alone in this planet. Little by little, her past life revealed and brought the mystery comes into light and you could start to understand about this world. The mysteries also create horror and it makes you constantly worried about Aimi and Flare.

But as it is Tsubana sensei's work, you will find a blank to fill. So if you are new to her works, you may be left confused.