Hiroki Endo's Tanpenshu - 8/10
I started reading it last night, stopping because I was too tired to fully appreciate it. I got the general jist of the second story, but it didn't really sink in until I'd finished. For example, I was left going 'What?' when Mina sat and watched her dad's porn collection first time around.
It's rare to see anything that requires you to think a little for yourself; stories with meaning. I went into it all wrong.
Anyway. I re-read the first two chapters again. The first chapter was a great read once again - I loved how Aoki said his life might've been different if only that little bird he released hadn't been killed be a crow - and the second chapter was much more enjoyable. I understood Mina's character better, having a firmer grasp on her dislike of sexual things and being treated like a female, and that made it much more accessible for me.
My favourite single chapter is the third. It had no death or insane people like the previous two chapters, but I just loved how the issues of people working together on a play for a uni drama club got joined together with the play they were doing - one about a serial killer. It was truly excellent, and I'd have liked it to have been longer; maybe even having its own series.
The first two chapters of the second volume weren't great, though. The first was plain weird, involving lots of sex, a robot the sex crazy/raped by her uncle (/random) school girl referred to as her brother... which told her to have sex and a world floating in the air, supported by cables. I got nothing out of it. The following chapter wasn't exactly bad, it covering a small part of the life of Endo - explaining just why he wants to get with a school girl because of his failings when he was younger - but it also wasn't anything special.
Thankfully, however, it ended on a high (well, in terms of story-telling, anyway..), with a 130 page double chapter yakuza story; one about a love that could never be. Usually in manga, you get romantic comedy moments and a happy ever after ending. Not in Endo's twisted, and slightly more realistic world, though - instead, he has the love interest of the lead watch as his father screws his love interest, the reason being that his father pays for her keep. I didn't care much/at all for the yakuza chatter, and I ignored it for the most part, but the depressing romance did it for me.
(Is there anything else similar to the final, two chapter story out there?)
Overall, I found the collection to be unusual; different in a good way. I want to see more of Endo's work... and I'm saddened to ee the only option is to read a lengthy sci-fi series. |