Hagio Moto - A, A' (Eng. trans.)
Fri, Aug. 4th, 2006 05:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterA, A' (pronounced: A, A Prime) is a collection of three short stories, all set in a universe in which there are genetically engineering humans called unicorns, all of whom have a distinctive red mane and a problem with expressing emotions. Said unicorns were apprently created to work with computers, but Hagio doesn't really get that much into the world-building on this point.
In "A, A'" the unicorn Addy has died on a mission, so her clone is brought back to help out. Some of the team is excited about this, but the first Addy's lover Regg is rather conflicted about this, to say the least.
In "4/4," Mori finds that his telekinesis powers grow stronger and more uncontrollable around the unicorn Trill. Trill doesn't speak much and doesn't seem to be much more intelligent than a child, despite being a fully-grown woman.
After the events of "4/4," Mori finds himself elsewhere, attracted to the unicorn Tracto.
I suck at plot summary.
Anyhow, the art here is so different from the art in Four Shojo Stories. It's much more eighties or something, wispier. The faces are also more oval. The plots are also very different from the rather straightforward mystery of "They Were Eleven;" Hagio focuses more on emotion, on questions of sexuality and identity, on loss and language.
Unfortunately, I wasn't that emotionally drawn into the works, particularly the longest one at the end, dealing with Tracto and Mori. I don't know why -- I think it was too short to really grab me. The one that I liked best was "A, A'," which raised interesting questions about clones and identity, and has a splash page of Addy' seeing Addy for the first time that's just stunning.
I think I work best with longer, serial narratives instead of these manga shorts.
Sigh.
Need to get my hands on The Heart of Tomas.
In "A, A'" the unicorn Addy has died on a mission, so her clone is brought back to help out. Some of the team is excited about this, but the first Addy's lover Regg is rather conflicted about this, to say the least.
In "4/4," Mori finds that his telekinesis powers grow stronger and more uncontrollable around the unicorn Trill. Trill doesn't speak much and doesn't seem to be much more intelligent than a child, despite being a fully-grown woman.
After the events of "4/4," Mori finds himself elsewhere, attracted to the unicorn Tracto.
I suck at plot summary.
Anyhow, the art here is so different from the art in Four Shojo Stories. It's much more eighties or something, wispier. The faces are also more oval. The plots are also very different from the rather straightforward mystery of "They Were Eleven;" Hagio focuses more on emotion, on questions of sexuality and identity, on loss and language.
Unfortunately, I wasn't that emotionally drawn into the works, particularly the longest one at the end, dealing with Tracto and Mori. I don't know why -- I think it was too short to really grab me. The one that I liked best was "A, A'," which raised interesting questions about clones and identity, and has a splash page of Addy' seeing Addy for the first time that's just stunning.
I think I work best with longer, serial narratives instead of these manga shorts.
Sigh.
Need to get my hands on The Heart of Tomas.
Tags: