Ozaki Kaori - Immortal Rain, vol. 01 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

(apologies for spamming the f-list)

Cue completely random volume of manga that I picked up in the library because the back cover copy promised an angsty immortal hero and the young female assassin determined to hunt him down. They fight crime!

vom_marlowe asked me what my story kinks were before; so far, I've been too lazy to write them up and inflict them on anyone. Also, it's almost embarrassing to see them repeated in all these book write-ups.

To continue with the story kinks, Rain Jewlitt (aforementioned angsty immortal hero) has this iron cross nailed to his chest where his heart should be, and Machika (aforementioned young female assassin) of course starts to fall in love with him. The surprising thing is, Rain is actually very cute and silly and sweet despite being an angsty immortal being, rather like Kenshin in a way. And he falls for Machika a bit.

The relationship and the story so far isn't very deep, but it wasn't as horrible as I expected. Also, in flashbacks, Machika's grandfather, Zol the Grim Reaper, is very hot and has a scar across his nose that, like all anime and manga scars, should be disfiguring but is instead extremely hot. And Rain has something to do with dead angels or imprisoned angels. Hi Oyce's storytelling kinks! Welcome to this manga!

And while the art is a little too eighties-influenced for me (the face shapes in particular), it's also very clean, which is appealing.

Also, did I mention the cute? I am strangely taken with the cute.

Not particularly recommended unless you like cute young perky female assassins and not-as-angsty immortal men. A lot.

ETA: Good lord! I got so caught up in my personal cool bits that I forgot about the HEAD IN A JAR! Oh manga, I love you so much.

Anyway, there is some girl who wants to capture Rain because! She was in love with this ruler, except his country was taken over and he was killed, and she and some other rebels managed to escape with his head in tow! In a jar! And she wants Rain because he is immortal and she wants to cut off his head and sew his body onto the head in a jar! And this is all portrayed as quite romantic and touching, despite the creepy vibes of Muraki in the distance.

And then! There are hilariously tragic scenes in which she is overcome by love and hugs the jar (containing head) to her chest and weeps over this wonderful ruler guy. And then! She finally realizes letting go is a good thing (I would insert that it is especially good if you are clinging to a head in a jar), and smashes the jar and buries the head in a tragic and touching yet completely hilarious sequence.

Have I mentioned again how much I love manga? Because when else can I say that I forgot about a HEAD IN A JAR?

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

this iron cross nailed to his chest where his heart should be

God, I love manga.

[oyceter]

OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO BLOG ABOUT THE HEAD IN A JAR!

Anyway, I just added that part in; you must add it to your collection of tragic yet completely hysterical moments with decapitated heads!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I must read this manga! Also, I think I need a "head" icon.

[oyceter]

I think I need to make a "decapitated heads of immense tragedy" icon a la your manga fowl of doom one. Except it will be spoilery. Hrm.

These are the ones I can remember: that samurai anime rilina was watching, X, YnM, this one, umm... must check your LJ post now.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

There are actually decapitated heads in two samurai anime I have watched/am watching. I will not mention the second, unless you want to be spoiled for it, but it has the tragic yet hysterical thing down pat.

The other one is purely hysterical.

[oyceter]

Heee!! I don't really mind being spoiled at all, though maybe put in spoiler text for other people?

[rilina-fic.livejournal.com]

The purely funny one is Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto, of EVIL HEAD IN BOX fame.

The played for tragedy but really just hysterical one is Peacemaker, though you get most of the unintentionally funny cradling of decapitated head in the manga Peacemaker Kurogane. It only shows up at the very end of the anime, briefly.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Hee!

You know, I probably should go back and finish watching the evil head in box anime, if only for the potential mockery.

[oyceter]

Bwahaha! I know! I still cannot get over the fact that I totally forgot about the head! Especially because the entire time I was reading it last night, I was thinking, "OMG! Cracktastic decapitated head moment!"

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hope you do take time to write those down sometime. The better to include them in a Sekrit Project, ya know! But this manga sounds awesome and I have to laugh about the head in a jar! I was reading a shonen-ai title about a DOOMed angel and his unfallen (?) romantic counterpart and thought of you. I've only just started it, so tough to know whether it will have promise, but at the moment, the wings (!) plus DOOM (!) plus urban setting (!) plus guy in actual glasses (!) is hitting so many buttons I don't care...

[oyceter]

I really do need to! I think I had a Cool Bits compilation post in the past (here it is! yay obsessive tagging! http://oyceter.livejournal.com/447257.html) and I wrote something up a year or so ago on things on back covers of books that always make me pick them up, but it'll be really interesting to see what's changed since reading so much manga.

Also, what is this manga you are talking about?! DOOMed angel! Urban Setting! GLASSES!

[vom-marlowe.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I will have to print out your cool bits and ponder.

The manga is Innocent Bird. I cannot promise quality, I can only promise crack! The art is pretty good, though, and I'm enjoying it so far.

[oyceter]

Oooo. I will have to see if I can flip through it somewhere.

[chomiji]

... muses on notion of disembodied heads ...

Are still-living heads on spikes too grisly? Or are those good too?

Because it came to me recently that I've come across those in two completely different stories.

- Cho

[oyceter]

Bwah! No way! That is awesome. Do tell!

[chomiji]

OK ... it's disembodied heads for Oyceter! (Because it turned out that for one of them, the hardware involved isn't a spike, per se ... pooh!)

The first one is in the classic Fafhrd and Grey Mouser novella "Adept's Gambit." In this, the intrepid adventuring duo have been shifted from their usual fantasy stomping grounds to Earth - specifically, the post-Alexandrian Middle East. They've also been afflicted with a curse that causes any woman embraced by the Mouser to turn into a giant snail and any woman embraced by Fahrd to turn into a pig - a major problem for this pair of womanizers. Their quest to dispel the curse gets them involved with the lissome Ahura Devadoris and her sickly (but magically gifted) twin brother Anra Devadoris - plus Anra's mentor, a sinister fellow known only as the Old Man Without a Beard.

Just short of the story's climax, the heroes and Ahura are exploring Anra's sinister stronghold, the Castle Called Mist, when they discover -

... an inner window, set level with the floor, and in that window they saw a face that seemed to float bodyless in the thick fog. Its feature defied recognition - it might have been a distillation of all the ancient, disillusioned faces in the world. There was no beard below the sunken cheeks.

Coming close as they dared, they saw that it was perhaps not entirely bodyless or without support. There was the ghostly suggestion of tatters of clothing or flesh trailing off, a pulsating sack that might have been a lung, and silver chains with hooks or claws.

Then the one eye remaining to that shameful fragment opened and fixed upon Ahura, and the shrunken lips twisted themslves into the caricature of a smile.

"Like you, Ahura," the fragment murmured in the highest of falsettos, "He sent me on an errand I did not want to run."

More recently, I reread (and blogged) Mary Gentle's early novel Rats and Gargoyles, in which Theodret, the Bishop of Trees (a rather pleasant old codger, although his sect is considered disreputable) and Master Candia of the University of Crime (a much more respectable person) pay a visit to one of the living gods, the Decans, that walk their alternate Earth. The message they deliver is not well-received. Candia is later found wandering the streets, filthy and half-mad. The Bishop is eventually found in the Decan's Fane by Candia, another of his University colleagues, and the mage known as the White Crow:

[The White Crow] stepped into the white stone cell. Its low step caught her foot. She stumbled, staring straight ahead.

Stark against her sight, an iron spike curved up out of the masonry wall. Blood and pale fluids had dried in streaks below it. The White Crow stared at the head of a man impaled on an iron spike. Undecayed, spots of blood still dripped from the neck-stump to the stained floor. White hair flowed to where, red-dappled, it stuck to drying knotes of vertebrae, slashed cords and tendons.

Only the head: the cell held no truncated body.

Dappled light shifted, gold and green. For a second the White Crow sense the rush of branches, birds, steps through leaf-mold. A shriek of ripped wood echoed, the light shifting. She knelt, staring levelly at the creased labile face.

At his open conscious eyes ... .

"Leave ... here ... ."

She shivered. Breath echoed back from the stone behind her, forced into painful speech: an old man's weary voice.

[oyceter]

Oh wow. That is really gross. And also rather funny (especially the bit about what may have been lungs attached!)!

Ahhh, heads.

[chomiji]

Oooh, maybe too gross? I did try to warn you ...

> worries <

[oyceter]

Hee, not at all. You did warn ^_^. Ahhhh, heads on sticks...