Soryo Fuyumi - Eternal Sabbath, vol. 03-04 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

Totally random note -- I can't seem to save and compile my custom layers; is anyone else having this problem? It's not my internet, because I've tested on a few computers, both on Firefox 2 and IE 6.

The plot thickens! The entire scenario with Mine and her friend creeped me out. I can't quite figure out what message I get out of Soryo's portrayal of their friendship; she seems to be critiquing the fact that Mine's friend must be jealous of her and that they must be jealous of each other. But I'm just very tired of the many fictional portrayals of jealous female friends. Particularly when one ends up dead as a way for a ruthless boy serial killer to toy with the other.

On the other hand -- man, that was creepy. Isaac staring at her, the knife, the scene afterward with the blood.

It's interesting how all the characters in this manga are dysfunctional; Mine seems sort of normal compared to Shuro/Akiba and Isaac, but really, she's not very equipped to navigate the social landscape either. And Isaac imprinting on Shuro and not learning love -- ouch.

I'm not quite sure where the series is going, but I love the questions that it's asking about learning to be human, learning to be social, learning to not be an asocial killer. It feels a lot like Urasawa's Monster to me, only Mosnter is a little more thriller and this is a little more of an exploration. The art works well for the series; stark whites and blacks, giant agoraphobic wide spaces, heavy shadows.

Comments

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

The jealous female friends thing normally bugs me a tonne, but I didn't have that reaction to ES at all. And I suspect it's because---as you say---everyone is so fucked up. It's one of the creepiest things I've read in ages. (Except for Anne Freaks.) Loved it!

Have you read Anne Freaks? What did you think?

[oyceter]

Yeah, I couldn't decide if it bugged me because they were so fucked up anyway! And of course, it could have been slightly less psychotic jealousy, were Isaac not around to inflame everyone's fears.

Anne Freaks? What is that? Tell, tell!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I had the impression that there were undercurrents of tension in the relationship, but that Isaac could take anyone's tiniest negative impulses to make them crazy. Like the cop who killed the murderer, then committed suicide-- those feelings weren't created out of thin air, but without Isaac's interference, they would have been just normal emotional background noise.

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

Zackly. That's what's so very very very very creepy about it. Any of us could be made into murderers.

Btw I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying being able to talk about manga with you two. You guys are always a million volumes ahead of me. Or talking about stuff I haven't heard of until you mention it. I'm almost one of the cool kids!

[oyceter]

Hi cool kid! That's so funny, because I always feel like that with rilina. Probably because she reads things and then sics them on me, so I'm perpetually behind ;).

Speaking of siccing stuff... have you discovered the wonder that is www.mangatraders.com? I am trying to get more people to read 20th Century Boys now that my brain got sucked in.

[oyceter]

*nods* Me too. I guess it's hard for me to decide if I'm thinking of it as yet another non-functional female friendship or not, particularly given the general lack of functional ones in manga (le sigh...).

It'd be interesting to see if Soryo throws in anything as a comparison, sort of like Kira's friend in Mars!

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

Anne Freaks by Yua Kotegawa. It's dark and violent and gory. Starts with a boy who's killed his mother and this gorgeous girl turns up to help him dispose of the body. There are four volumes. So it actually ends. Yay!

How spoilery do you want me to be? I found it compulsively readable and strange and I'm not sure how I feel about it. The femme fatale thing was flatout bizarre.

[oyceter]

Ohhh, interesting! Scans, I'm guessing? I don't remember seeing that title, but then, I always miss stuff.

Hrm, maybe don't be too spoilery, since I may pick that one up. Except -- just to double check, you didn't want to spork your eyes out because of the femme fatale thing, right? I figure not, since you are reccing it, but it never hurts to ask!

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

No, no scans. I got the first (http://www.amazon.com/Anne-Freaks-1/dp/1413903193) as a freebie at some book fair thingie and then had to race off to Forbidden Planet and St Mark's to get the rest.

It's very boy. You never really figure out entirely where Anne is coming from. But you do into the head of these two women cops. They were the main cops and I found their relationship fascinating.

Yeah, I'm totally recommending it. But don't forget I'm a novice! And what's surprising and new and cool to me might not be to you.

[oyceter]

Awesome! Widely accessible is of the good!

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

Mine's friend's jealousy worked for me because of the stage of life they were at -- it wasn't just jealousy. I think people hit a point in their 30s when they start re-examining the choices they made and resenting the people in their lives who represent those choices. Mine's friend (I can't remember her name and I don't want to dig up the book) chose a relationship over her career, and then the relationship failed. Mine then seemed to her to represent what she could have had in her own life but didn't. I don't see that jealousy as "Mine has something I don't," but rather "Mine has something I could have had, but I made a different choice and look where it got me." I think that's common for people in that age group. If we're married, we look at our friends who stayed single, and think, "I could have had her career and been free of all these responsibilities." But if we're single, we look at our married friends and think, "Why do I have to be all by myself with just a job to show for my life?"

But this series fascinates me the most for how Shuro is learning how humans interact by trying to get to know Mine.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I mean, it does make sense for the context and etc., but on the other hand, it's yet another female friendship gone awry, thanks to jealousy. It's a hard line to draw sometimes. Also, I think it pinged me a little more because I've seen so few female friendships, much less healthy ones in manga (and in fiction in general, but that's a whole new kettle of fish).

It'd be interesting to see more female characters in ES who aren't Mine and Isaac's friend.

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

What about YA? Don't you think that's chock full of female friendships?

[oyceter]

Oof, yeah, good point. I do see a lot of female friendships in YA, and even more that have nothing to do with romance, thank goodness. And of course, my reading is sort of skewed, since I tend to pick up female authors more for some reason, so I think I am seeing more female friendships than most? Which is excellent and something I seek out!

Except, (and I could be very wrong) I get the impression that in a large chunk of anything that isn't specifically aimed at women, there are very few women characters, much less multiple women characters who have relationships with each other independent of the men in their lives.

I remember posting in the past about having a general impression that many stories about male friendships are very positive and feature bonds tighter than romantic bonds (cop stories, buddy stories, etc.), whereas stories about female friendships tend to focus on jealousy and competition, but that was an impression of mine without any really good supporting info. I dunno... does that sort of ping with your impression, or am I way off, or I guess it differs a lot according to genre (romance and YA vs. thrillers and mysteries?)?

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

You raise an interesting issue in terms of female friendships in manga. I'm trying to think of ones that I know are out there -- Sakura and Tomoyo, for one -- well, actually Sakura and her whole group of friends. Let me think about this, and I'll blog on it in the next day or so. Oh, another one just occurred to me from a shonen manga. Orihime and Rukia make for an interesting friendship, although Orihime seems to develop a little jealousy eventually.

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

Nana and all the female friendships in Paradise Kiss.

[oyceter]

Hrm, must think...

There's Kira and I-forgot-her-name in Mars, though that's usually a very distant second to the Kira/Rei relationship. Oyayubihime Infinity has a great sister relationship. Like Justine said, Yazawa Ai's series all have great female friendships and place nearly as much, as much, or greater emphasis on them than the romances (yet another reason I love Yazawa Ai!). Naruto has bits of the Sakura-Ino friendship, though really not very much.

Fruits Basket has Tohru and her two best friends, though they're often backgrounded to Tohru's relationship with the Sohma family. Tramps Like Us has Sumire and her friend, though often backgrounded to Sumire/Momo or Sumire/Hasumi. Her Majesty's Dog has Amane's best friend, though often backgrounded to Amane/Hyoue.

Hrm. That's what's on my manga shelf right now... So they do seem to be there, but very few of them seem to place a narrative importance on the female friendships that's equal to the romantic relationships (at least, the manga that I own... ).

And we will not even talk about Watase Yuu and her many, many issues with female friendships! *spork*

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

The manga that occurs to me as being all about female friendships, in all its varieties, is Azumanga Daioh. The only male character of any note is Kimura-sensei, and none of the female characters want anything to do with him. In AD, you have the friendships between the two teachers, their friendships with the group of students, the friendship of the students with each other, and smaller pairs of friends within the group: Yomi and Tomo, Tomo and Osaka and Kagura as the three dunces, Sakaki and Chiyo-chan, Chiyo-chan and Osaka, Kagura trying to compete athletically with Sakaki, Tomo trying to compete with anyone about anything because it's her nature to be competitive, and so on. I need to reread that series. It's such a delight.

[oyceter]

Oh! I had no idea! All I know about Azumanga Daioh is that there are cute chibi keychains of the characters. I think I need to go flip through that series now.

[fmanalyst.livejournal.com]

I like the anime better than the manga, though they're both funny. The manga is more like a newspaper comic than a usual manga. It's rather like reading Peanuts. But basically, AD follows a group of girls through their high school years, culminating in graduation.