Othello Vol. #01A

By Mike Dungan     August 05, 2004
Release Date: October 12, 2004



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Satomi Ikezawa
Translated by:n/a
Adapted by:

What They Say


The Review
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Yaya Higuchi has a secret: she loves Juliet, a goth band. Yaya is rather quiet and conservative, and tries hard not to stand out. But when Sunday comes around, she dresses up in her goth gear and heads out to hang out with the other Juliet fans in town. No one knows her real name, and she doesn't know their real names. When she's with them, though, it's the only time she really feels like she's being herself.

In her mundane life, she has two friends in Moe and Seri. Friends like this no one needs. They're constantly belittling her and pulling pranks on her. She wants to stand out, but is afraid to. Her self-confidence is dangerously close to absolute zero. Into this unhappy existance walks Moriyama, her classmate. He's very confident and a bit rough, but he takes an interest in Higuchi and, after discovers her listening to a Juliet minidisc, he offers her a Led Zeppelin MD with an extra song tacked on to the end of it. Before she has a chance to listen to it, though, her "friends" steal it from her. What's a painfully shy girl to do? In Yaya's case, she becomes someone else. Nana. Nana is the complete opposite of Yaya. Nana doesn't take any grief from anyone. Nana stands out and loves it. Nana kicks ass and doesn't bother taking names. And Nana gets the disc back. Yaya never remembers her time as Nana, and they are so completely different in personality, no one is even sure if Nana and Yaya are the same person. As the story progresses, Nana and Moriyama become closer, and Moe and Seri begin an all out war to get between them.

Comments
The review copy we were given is a folder of printouts of the preproduction art with some editors comments still in place. It's an interesting look at a manga in it's early stages of adaptation from Japanese to English. There are comments such as a black panel that says "Japanese to be added back in" and comments like "text to be translated".

Since this is such an early version of the book, the only thing I can fairly comment on is the content of the story. Satomi Ikezawa's Othello is an interesting and very entertaining look at a girl who is struggling with her self-identity. She's caught between the girl she presents to the world and hates, and the girl she wishes she was, but can't conciously bring herself to be. The conflict between those two personalities manifests itself in a second personality who is everything Nana wishes she could bring herself to be. The brief periods when Nana is in control are brilliantly timed and often hilarious. Nana is like a superhero, protecting Yaya from the outside world. Unfortunately for Yaya, this only creates more conflicts for her.

I enjoyed Othello. The premise of Yaya's split personality is well handled, making her a likeable and sympathetic character. There's plenty of romance, humor and even action, and I look forward to future volumes.