Mizushiro Setona - After School Nightmare, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

This is possibly the oddest thing I've read all year, and I read Le Chevalier d'Eon this year.

Mashiro Ichijo has just been told that he needs to take a special after-school class in order to graduate. The classroom is in a basement that didn't previously exist, and instead of desks, the room is lined with canopy beds. It turns out that he will be entering a dream world and confronting his own worst nightmare. Several other classmates of his are in there as well, though they take different forms in the nightmare/dream world.

Mashiro's terrified that people will discover that his upper half is male, but his lower half is female, and things are further complicated when his male classmate Sou starts pursuing him romantically and when he's attracted to his female classmate Kureha as well.

As you might be able to tell from the premise, this series takes on questions of gender identity. I still can't tell if I like the politics or not; Mizushiro makes some assumptions that I keep wanting to question (why does liking Sou back mean identifying as female? what's so bad about being a woman? and I think the second is implied not only through Mashiro's fear of discovery, but also through the roles women have to play in the series so far and in the other Mizushiro series I've read). But the world is surreal and dreamy, edges bleeding together between the dream world and the real world, which seems less and less real as the series goes on.

Images that struck me: a girl so cut off that she shows up in the dream world as a body with a hole through her head and her chest instead of a face and a heart. Someone who manifests as long snaky arms, constantly grabbing and holding and winding around people. Empty desks and lockers at the school.

And the art is absolutely gorgeous; I mean to buy these just so I can have the color pages that GoComi includes.

Recommended for anyone who likes the strange and subtly creepy, particularly with a massive dose of gender identity issues.

Comments

Re: SOMEWHAT VAGUE POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

[oyceter]

I can't quite tell either, though 1999nen and Mely's reports on Mizushiro's other manga make me seriously doubt that it will end as a feminist critique. And I totally see why Mashiro doesn't want to be a girl either, but right now, I'm leaning toward the author thinking that the solution to that is being a boy, as opposed to being a feminist.

And I keep wanting Kureha to do a lot more, particularly given her fear of men. Also, I can't help think that the amount of passivity each character has correlates with their gender (Sou = male and very active and aggressive, Mashiro = both and somewhat active with Kureha and more passive with Sou, Kureha = female and very passive).

Hee! I, um, am a little disturbed that I find Sou/Mashiro really hot.

Graduation freaks me out! I don't think any of it is really happening either, and I think this is one of the few series where "it was all a dream" isn't a cop-out as an ending, just because the entire thing feels so dream-like.

There totally needs to be a crossover between this and Mulholland Drive. It would drive people insane just reading it!

Re: SOMEWHAT VAGUE POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

[the_rck]

I find myself wondering if graduation isn't some sort of rebirth. Everyone seems to be addressing issues that somehow have them trapped. Of course, getting and using the key doesn't seem to depend on resolving those issues exactly...

Re: SOMEWHAT VAGUE POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

[oyceter]

Ooo hrm. (spoilers for v. 4 and Haibane Renmei): Graduation is now reminding me of the Day of Flight in Haibane Renmei, only, you know, way creepier and less cathartic.

Re: SOMEWHAT VAGUE POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

[jen-jay.livejournal.com]

Hi, I wandered here while I was looking up this manga. I agree with everyone's thoughts, totally. :) I hadn't considered graduation as rebirth. Hmm...! :D

The characters trying to cram their self-images into one of two inflexible roles is understandable when you consider that that's the societal rule... but, yeah, there is a creepy undertone that alternate roles (gay, bi, trans) are not even under consideration by the manga, much less by the characters. I'm hoping Mashiro's joined swords allude to something different... but the trend doesn't seem to be going that way.

Interestingly, friends in the trans/bi communities here (in the US) say that there is a conflict of gender roles in these communities in the West. One camp argues that being transgender should mean you are open to ANY definition of the self. The other argues that the standard gender roles have meaning, and a true transgender person should accept all aspects of your chosen gender... otherwise you are not truly accepting your true self.

So, even though this manga (and many others) seem oddly conflicted in how they break and support gender roles, it's not just in Japan that contradictions abound.

Re: SOMEWHAT VAGUE POSSIBLE SPOILERS IN COMMENTS

[oyceter]

*nods* Thanks for the info; that's really interesting. I... yeah. I would like more acknowledgment of life outside gender binaries and discussion of transgender issues, but I'm not quite sure how much we're going to get, sigh. But I am now more optimistic than I was when I started reading the series!