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

[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.