The premise of the story is that society has developed several ways to escape reality, both in the form of drugs which can evoke any emotion and machines which tap into a person's subconscious, forming virtual worlds which can be controlled with enough mental discipline. At first you think you can tell when the protagonist is hallucinating; but before long, you cannot even tell what is real. The protagonist's perception of time gets very distorted, coupled with flashbacks into his memory, and bizarre reflections of his inner psyche; you will certainly be hesitant to say that any particular moment is "reality". After all, Ultra Heaven is a drug which makes what you experience seem more real than reality itself. The story is very complex, and there is a great amount of symbolism through-out it. I would often spend several minutes thinking about what a certain image might represent. I spent a great amount of time pondering what the protagonist ultimately desires, why he does what he does; is he simply seeking his next high, or something deeper and greater? I must say that this series does psychological in a way that few Seinen titles attempt, and even fewer succeed. At first look, it will seem to be pointless tripping on drugs, but if you look further, and really ponder what things may mean, the story will take a whole new meaning.
While the story and characters are interesting, especially if you spend the time to examine each facet carefully, the true strength of this manga lies in the way it constructs itself. This is what turns this manga from good, to ground breaking. First of all, the art is exceptional, with incredibly complex and "trippy" depictions of the protagonists "trips" down the path of his subconscious. But the truly amazing thing is how the author uses the panels of the manga. Many series today never break conventions of how panels are used, and some just blatantly waste them. One of the reasons I despise the Bleach manga so much is the way that the author will just waste whole pages with some black smear which is supposed to represent a "suspenseful" moment of "action". Many manga fan's don't give proper panel use enough credit, it really controls how a manga flows, and the impact it leaves by looking at a page. Well, the panel use in Ultra Heaven is truly ground breaking. While moments of order and mental stability tend to use the standard square panels, moments in which reality begins to break down will begin to feature very unusual panel shapes. The panels will begin to warp around each other, or feel like a moving shutter. Furthermore, the author often uses a concept to "ideologically" connect the panels, so that they flow not only physically on the page, yet also mentally. You can often see a similarity between two objects as they "evolve" between the panels. Ultimately these panel techniques allow the author to effectively imitate a dream. In your dreams you may find yourself in a certain place or time, yet you cannot remember exactly how you came to be there. In this way, a dream can continually evolve without you realizing it. The panel techniques do something much the same; you will sometimes wonder how you came to a certain point, this is not due to poor story telling, but just because your mind has flowed from point to point until you find yourself in a whole new world without remembering exactly how you got there. I had never even considered the idea of manga panels being used in such a way; couple this with outstanding art, a complex evolving storyline with little attachment to standard chronological development, and equally complex psychological character development. This manga blew my mind in the ways which manga was used as a median of expression; while I have many series which I love for their stories, they rarely have ever made me reconsider my perspective on manga as a whole. Ultra Heaven is an under-appreciated gem, which has not just given us all a good story, but also a new way to tell it.
Every now and then, there comes about a ground-breaking manga, something which revolutionizes the way manga is done and redefined the genre. Throughout his career, Tezuka Osamu revolutionized manga by introducing new techniques and longer, more complex stories; pushing manga into a serious median of expression. While before manga had been just as it's name implies in Japanese, 漫画 (Rambling Pictures) which were often only a few panels; Tezuka began to write epics which were targeted to a larger and more mature audience. Later Tatsumi Yoshihiro would introduce a cinematic approach to manga, incorporating many dark and morbid themes into his short stories; later coining the term 劇画 (Gekiga: Dramatic Pictures) in 1957. At the time manga was targeted towards children, and this movement towards an "alternative" manga which appealed to a mature audience truly redefined the genre. While Tezuka's work greatly inspired Tatsumi, Tatsumi's work would in turn influence Tezuka's later works. Indeed, the current state of Seinen manga may not exist if not for both these groundbreaking authors. Ultra Heaven pushes the boundaries of how stories are executed in manga, and even more so in its usage of panels. While Tatsumi used panels to give a cinematic feel to his series, Ultra Heaven manages to create a diverse panel selection which flows mentally unlike anything I have seen before. I can with total confidence state that Ultra Heaven has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of manga; if it was only more widely known and acknowledged.
I cannot guarantee that you will love this series, after-all it definitely takes a certain perspective to approach it as any more than a bunch of people trippin, but if you pay close attention, it can very well revolutionize the way you perceive manga. Definitely worth at least checking out.
