Utsubora
Utsubora: The Story of a Novelist

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Well this certainly was quite an oddball mystery story and a pretty good one. The story goes that a young woman jumps off a building and it seems she is connected to the dashing author guy himself, Mizorogi. So he meets her twin sister and a lot happens from there in which I can’t tell you much about because this is only 14 chapters and if I say anymore lads, y’all will be spoiled. That’s the main reason I’m being vague with this review so just go read this damn weird mystery book lads!

Also readers of Doukyusei would really enjoy the whole story ... and it’s pretty weird elegant art ngl x)

A woman with a dead yet captivating look on the cover of this manga, along with the subtitle - The Story of a Novelist - caught my interest from the very beginning, so yesterday I decided to give Utsubora a try.

With a daring and confusing introduction, Utsubora starts a story full of lies and deception, attraction and sensuality, mystery and confusion that camouflages all its truths and answers to any question you may have. A narrative that challenges the reader to differentiate between the lie and the truth, an intelligent book that deals maturely with many topics that are not seen so much in the ... manga. Asumiko Nakamura is known for her somewhat dark and cold approach to human nature to bring out all the passion we can find within ourselves. If we add to this a well-executed mystery, we are left with this marvel of manga and story.

Utsubora tells us the story of a creator, an author who loses his passion for what gives life to a writer, his writing, and falls into plagiarism, and all that this entails. The distortion of reality that occurs in the manga reminds me slightly of Perfect Blue, and how the pressure can deteriorate our vision of what is true.

Artistically, the manga is very beautiful, both for the designs of its characters and for the line and cleanliness of all its pages. It is important to emphasize the importance and detail in the characters' faces, especially in the eyes, which are kept beautiful all the time, and how erotic and sensual the drawing can be sometimes. Besides, the paneling helps a lot to reinforce the core message of some scenes and to give greater fluidity to the most revealing and enigmatic dialogues.

In general, very surprised with this manga, I liked it much more than I expected and I would be happy if you gave it a chance. Rarely have I found such mature, enigmatic, mysterious and poetic story in only 2 volumes of manga.

"You write because you're alive.You're alive because you write.Still,does living really require anything to put on a scale against itself?"

The sole reason why I picked up this manga is because I came across this obscure manga review on youtube and the synopsis looked intriguing but what I found was possibly the best manga I've read.I read the manga twice in one day and I don't think I've read any Psychological Thriller that kept me second guessing myself throughout their entire length.This is feels like something right out of Satoshi Kon's mind and it's fitting cause the manga reminded me of Perfect Blue.

The story revolves ... around a famous author named Shun Mizorogi whose creativity seemed to dry up and haven't been able to write anything new for awhile thus he succumbs to plagiarism.The only issue is the true author whose work he stole comes to meet him and commits suicide in a very mysterious circumstance.Once she is dead her twin sister shows up and thus the mystery begins for Mizorogi to keep up with what's fiction and what's reality.

The unreliable non-linear narration makes it tricky to understand.Specially when the narrator himself has a hard time distinguishing who is real and who is fiction.The manga itself is so hard to keep up with because of the different motivations each character has also the motives themselves serves as meta-narration for how the characters perceives what writing means and for the ones who write it is perceived as to what living is.There's a brilliant metaphor which is tied to Mizorogi's sexual impotence and how it represents his ability to write.Also watch out for an amazing monologue about the duality of both human eyes and how each helps the other to construct a proper object.

Just read this.You won't be disappointed