Advance Review: Faust Anthology

[Chris Beveridge]

Review by Greg Hackmann

When I first opened the package containing my advance copy of Faust Vol. #1, I wondered what I had gotten myself into. Here in front of my eyes was a massive 448-page chunk of paper promising the "cutting edge of Japanese pop culture", with lots of names printed across the cover that I either had little interest in or little recognition of. But once I dared to actually read the damned thing, I was taken aback by its fascinating, highly entertaining, and surprisingly accessible contents.

The volume's sprawling contents are spread across six short prose stories, four essays, four one-shot manga stories, and two "bonus features". These bonus features consist of an interview with The Garden of Sinner's creators and an essay on the Japanese/American cross-cultural exchange of comics. I didn't see any mention of what makes these latter two features "bonus" items (they're segregated from the rest of the prose but read very much like the other essays); but based on their contents I'm guessing they've been prepared specifically for Faust's North American release. Because of the sheer volume of material here, it's not really practical for me to talk about all of these stories and essays in depth; but I'll try to pick out some of the book's high and low points.

Faust's selling point for most readers will probably be the excerpt chapters from NISIOISIN's much-anticipated xxxHOLiC: ANOTHERHOLiC novel and Kinoku Nasu's The Garden of Sinners. (It's not much of a coincidence that both titles are also going to be released in their entirety by Faust publisher Del Rey.) Seeing as I haven't read the xxxHOLiC manga, I was pleasantly surprised by how well the ANOTHERHOLiC excerpt worked as a one-shot short story. The premise, involving a young woman who can't resist the temptation to sabotage her own life, is clever; the writing flows smoothly; and the ending is conclusive enough for the story to stand alone well outside the context of the whole novel.

The Garden of Sinners excerpt doesn't hold up as well, mainly because it dedicates too much time to meandering rather than developing the plot. There are some lofty ideas thrown around, like the psychological effect of extreme heights on human perception, but Nasu doesn't tie them into the main storyline well enough to justify how much time the characters spend discussing them. Without the rest of the novel to see where he's going with this, it's hard to tell whether these off-the-cuff rants actually go somewhere later on or whether they're just there to fill in space. Either way, the story ranks as one of only two segments in this volume that really fall flat. (The other is Ryusui Seiryoin's 2-page gag short "Yabai de Show" -- despite translator Paul Johnson's best efforts, the dialogue really hinges too much on a single Japanese pun to work well in English.)

Apart from being the volume's stand-out story, Otaro Maijo's surreal "Drill Hole in My Brain" is Faust's best claim to its self-described "avant-garde" status. The editorial notes compare Maijo's style to William S. Burroughs, and it's a fitting comparison: "Drill Hole" is vulgar, sexually-charged, hallucinatory, and still wonderful to read -- in no small part due to Andrew Cunningham's literate translation. Other highlights in the prose section include Otsuichi's "F-Sensei's Pocket", which presents an inventive cross between high-school drama and Doraemon; and "Yaya Sato's Counseling Session", where Sato advocates (with tongue firmly in cheek) that all problems can be solved by one-sentence catchphrases. The entire prose section is printed with editorial introductions and helpful cultural/translation footnotes, with "F-Sensei" being notably filled with explanations of the story's many Doraemon references for otherwise-clueless readers like myself.

The manga section is harder to judge: two of the four stories are dialogue-free and hinge on the complex artwork, which is extremely hard to make out in my advance proof copy. Moheji Yamasaki's short "Maple Tree Viewing", which presents an interesting illustration/alternate take on a classic Japanese poem, suffers from a lot of the same printing problems but is a little bit easier to understand because of the textual blocks. The print quality is much kinder to Yun Kouga's and NISIOISIN's "After School: Seventh Class", which features simpler (but still effective) art. "After School" deals mainly with the psychological tension between a warden and his inmate, a prodigy of such profound genius that she fears she could design a weapon that would destroy the entire world. Like a couple of the prose shorts here (such as Kouhei Kadono's "Outlandos d'Amour"), I have mixed feeling about how open-ended "After School" turned out to be, especially since it's meant to be a self-contained work and not an excerpt; but otherwise it's got a solid narrative and appealing artwork.

Despite Nasu's and Seiryoin's misfires in the prose section and a couple of manga stories that I can't make out, on the whole Volume 1 of Faust has been a delight to read. "Drill Hole" and "F-Sensei" alone are worth the price of admission, and most of the rest is still very entertaining (if not quite as strong as Maijo's and Otsuichi's work). Even readers who are skeptical about the prose-heavy contents or the $16.95 price point should give this release a look.

[The Pirate Queen]

This looks neat - I'm really looking forward to picking it up.

[Andrew Cunningham]

Drill Hole in My Brain is the single most difficult translation I've ever done, and I'm very glad to hear it went over well.

[Fencedude]

Originally Posted by Greg Hackmann

The Garden of Sinners excerpt doesn't hold up as well, mainly because it dedicates too much time to meandering rather than developing the plot. There are some lofty ideas thrown around, like the psychological effect of extreme heights on human perception, but Nasu doesn't tie them into the main storyline well enough to justify how much time the characters spend discussing them.

I like how this is the absolute perfect description of everything Nasu's ever written.

But dammit I love his stuff anyway. Can't wait to check out the second Kara no Kyoukai: The Garden of Sinners movie tonight.