Ultra Heaven is a profound experience and it is a shame that so few have ever been introduced to it. Ultra Heaven's obscurity is due to it's heavy dealing with drug use and it's non linear storytelling. If you only take what you see it comes off as very outlandish and weird and you most likely will not enjoy. Now if you're feeling like taking a step back and truly analyzing the message behind Ultra Heaven you will find more than you can even hope to decipher.
Ultra Heaven is without a doubt the most sublime and psychedelic visual experience in all of manga. The characters are drawn extremely accurately to actual humans and their emotions are portrayed vividly. The background art is fantastic but most of all it is the manga’s use of panels and the incorporation of psychedelic elements that make the art a true standout. Ultra Heaven loves to break the boundary between dream and reality and it does that best through the panels. Typically in manga, the panels are very structured and box like and the pictures are stuffed inside. Ultra Heaven has these panels more when the characters are not “tripping” and makes it feel more like reality. Then when the “trip” begins the panel usage completely changes becoming curved and morphing into the line art and moving you along with the story. Ultra Heaven’s art style and use of panels is revolutionary as there are no manga that are willing to break apart the structured style and to go with something so unique. I would not be surprised if the author had experimented with hallucinogenic drugs before because the art is so vivid and realistic that it truly feels like this is what a drug trip is like, not that I would know. The art style is truly sublime and ground breaking in its beauty and use of panels and is something you will not find anywhere else, in any medium let alone manga.
The story of Ultra Heaven also breaks manga conventions and maybe even more strikingly than the artwork. Stories about drug abuse do not come around often and if they do then they are meant to steer people away from drugs. Although Ultra Heaven could have that effect it is not against drugs, more it shows how drugs can unlock deeper levels of the human consciousness that are otherwise inaccessible and maybe even give us a view into the fabric of time and space, meet with God, or to see the instance of death only to return to life. Because of this dealing with psychedelic drug "trips" Ultra Heaven's storytelling is extremely non-linear and follows a very distorted yet surprisingly ingenious and captivating style. It combines flashbacks, reality, and dreams without ever revealing to the reader which is which.
The most profound aspect of Ultra Heaven is its questioning of why do humans choose to escape from reality. Whether it is Kabu and other drug addicts, the pseudo-Buddhism inner evolution cult, or just regular people we all find ways to escape reality. Why is it that you watch anime or read a manga? Why do we play music or watch movies? Why do people take drugs and risk their lives? Ultra Heaven constantly asks these questions and it is executed to perfection and allows the reader to not only view them in the context of the story but also in their own life. Watching Kabu "tripping" on Ultra Heaven or diving into his inner subconscious we wonder why he chooses to do this and we also wonder why we choose to escape reality. Is it the euphoria? The sanctuary? The didacticism? Is it a weakness of sentient beings? Or is it a combination of all this? In all honesty, I don’t know I would dare to say that is a combination of euphoria, feeling of sanctity and didacticism along with an overall weakness of beings that possess higher intelligence to want to escape into a different realm of consciousness. I can guarantee however, that I never would have thought of any of this if it were not for Ultra Heaven. That is another fascinating aspect of Ultra Heaven. It merely turns on the switch and your brain does the rest, the imagining, the thinking, the being. Our minds are merely the machines that allow us to perceive and interpret the infinite expanse of the universe. As the story of Ultra Heaven twists and morphs into something more then manga itself your entire understanding of the medium will change. The life you live will come into question; the faith you have will be questioned; the evolution of humanity onto a higher plane of existence, all of these topics will be presented to you and it the only way to understand them is to think. For whatever reason you were born with the ability to think, you may know nothing but you can at least think and therefore you exist, don't waste the life you have, dream or reality.
Ultra Heaven is also extremely successful in its use of visual symbolism. Although I do not know the author’s, Koike Keiichi, intentions in creating this manga I will give a short analysis on some symbols, or what I took as symbols, that appear in the manga. The religious symbols and allusions are numerous. Seeing beings of light during a trip, going to a faraway place, the roller coaster to paradise, Ultra Heaven itself, and the pseudo-Buddhist cult all are symbols of god, and religion. The constant recurrence of eyes could be seen as a symbol of the breaking of reality and dreams, perception becomes distorted and too numerous to differentiate. The boundary to life and death being seen in the flat line is there even one at all. There are more symbols that I cannot even begin to uncover from this manga as I am not capable of discerning all of that information.
I would like to quickly mention that Ultra Heaven’s characters all possess personality and human emotion but the manga is short and very few are fully looked into aside from Kabu and his female friend, who may be named Sally. They are interesting and help to create an advent for the story. Kabu’s trips provide the perfect perspective in which to convey the overarching messages to the audience and allow for full artistic expression. Kabu is so realistic I wouldn’t be surprised to walk into a rehab clinic and find people just like him. I would dare to bet if you are a recovering drug addict you will be able to connect even better with Kabu’s struggles. The exploration of his mind takes the meaning of psychological manga to a new level as we truly journey in his subconscious and see what he sees, which happens to be extremely sublime and psychedelic.
In an attempt to find a flaw in this manga, seriously I tried, the best I could come up with is this: Ultra Heaven is not for everyone and may very well leave you with a negative impression due to the outlandishness and obscurity of its central topic and art style, and if you are not prepared to analyze it on a deeper level, or don’t think it can be analyzed, and only see what is presented to you than you will not gain much from reading it aside from a strange trip with funky art. If I can even call those flaws of this manga, I don’t think I can.
Ultra Heaven is more than manga; it is a transcendent work of human thought and emotion. Ultra Heaven is profound, it may be flawed and I would not disagree if someone were to point one out, yet I could not find anything of significance that holds this manga back aside from the aforementioned reason, again if that reason can even be considered a flaw. With a story rich with thematic and personal relevance, symbolism, and possibly even allegory, it has inherent literary value. The artistic style and use of panels is revolutionary and distinct in the medium that no other work I have read compares to the mastery of blending together page, word and picture into one that creates a sublime visual experience. The series is accurate in its psychological development of the human mind and in its description of the effects of drugs on the brain. The manga should have changed the entire scope of the medium with its usage of panels and unique storytelling execution but has remained so obscure due to its central topic which remains taboo in many cultures. Ultra Heaven is a manga masterpiece with a revolutionary and unparalleled art style, daring concept, unique and brilliant storytelling, immense thematic reach, and abundant personal relevance, a mind melting trip that will open your eyes to the brilliance of the unconventional and reconstruct what you thought manga could achieve. Thanks for reading, Quaz Out!
(Review originally posted on my Anime Amino page however I edited it to not include spoilers so I could post it on MAL)
