The debut work of a promising artist combines Japanese folklore and contemporary comedy to make an entertaining read.
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Nina Matsumoto
Translation: N/A
Adaptation: N/A
What They Say
Yokai - Japanese spirits.
Most people fear them, and a few people even hunt them, thinking they are horrible monsters to be destroyed at all costs. But young Hamachi wants to be friends with them! He sees them as mischievous creatures that could coexist peacefully with humans if only given a chance.
When his grandmother dies under mysterious circumstances, Hamachi journeys into the Yokai realm. Along the way, he encounters an ogre who punishes truant children, an angry water spirit, and a talking lantern. Will Hamachi be able to find his grandmother's killer, or will he be lost forever in another world?
The Review!
Packaging:
Del Rey has gone with a non-glossy fingerprint resistant cover, and I'm all in favour of that. The image does its job of letting you know what you're in for by showing the hero and two of the youkai he meets in the story. The back of the book is very plain, just the above copy on a green background. The dark green shade works well for the spine, though; it distinguishes itself on the shelf really well. A single front-and-back colour page at the beginning of the book provides two nice character illustrations. Print quality is generally good with no glaring problems, and the paper quality is at the usual level. Extras consist of a collection of four panel gag strips playing off of events in the volume - as usual, some not that great, a couple uproariously funny - and a couple of pages of conversation from the artist, done in comics form.
Artwork:
The artist has come up with a pretty good-looking book for her first effort. The monsters probably come off looking the best, and considering how much they outnumber the humans in this story, that's all well and good. The humans look fine in their own way; they're expressive and the designs are easy to distinguish. The real suprise is the backgrounds. These are always good and often good in unexpected ways. The ordinary backgrounds of forest, town and building interiors are well drawn in a straightforward way and show good detail. Sometimes landscapes in the human world are drawn in a style reminiscent of Japanese paintings, which adds to the period atmosphere. But the yokai world is the most evocative: blank sky, twisted trees, and rocks that jut out of the ground like teeth.
Text/SFX:
Lettering is good all around and makes a good use of differing fonts for special effects, yokai voices, etc. No translation was necessary so the speech bubbles are always properly sized for text and the sound effects are of course in English. Japanese text does appear in certain contexts such as the plates that introduce chapters, for whatever it's worth.
Contents: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Folklore and legend have always held a special place with me. I have never found it easy to resist the stories handed down from one storyteller to another through any number of generations; the stories that fill the woods and the streams with creatures that are elusive, mischevious, strange, funny, fearful, and always fascinating. Yokaiden plays to this side of me very strongly. It is a story that teems with the kinds of things I have always liked in western folklore, combined with the (for me) novelty of learning about the creatures the Japanese people have invented or discovered for themselves throughout their creative history.
The plot begins in a traditional way - all the better for it, if you ask me. Hamachi is an orphaned boy living in feudal Japan. He lives with his grandmother in a small village, selling bamboo shoots to make a living. He's just like any other nine-year-old boy, really; except that he loves the Yokai: the imps, ogres, sprites, goblins and general monsters of old Japan. His hero is Inukai Mizuki, the famous scholar who sought out all the facts, tales and lore about Yokai that he could find, and put it all down into a book that Hamachi has practically learnt by heart. When he runs across a real, live, honest-to-goodness Kappa caught in a trap, it's as though his wildest dreams have come true.
But dreams can be nightmares as well as pleasant dreams. When Hamachi finds his grandmother's soul has been sucked away, presumably as revenge for setting the Kappa's trap, he sets off on a journey to the Yokai realm to get her soul back, armed with little more than a sacred rope and his knowledge of the Yokai and their ways. The Yokai and the humans have never been on the best of terms, so Hamachi has a lot of bad blood to overcome. And if he can't overcome it the penalty will be high. Most Yokai are harmless when left alone and only play practical jokes on humans from time to time. But some are much more dangerous: a few are said to be able to devour souls.
Comments:
The story is agreeable enough at the start, though having a taste in monsters will certainly hurt nobody. There's a self-awareness in the storytelling from time to time ("I'm an orphan! A classic, archetypal orphan!" wails the hero at one point) but it's used sparingly and never wears out its welcome. Yokaiden takes the time to establish its characters, so this first volume is spent mainly on introductions and getting Hamachi into the Yokai realm. But I like the shape things are taking, and the sense of humour sprinkled liberally throughout the book. If you never believed there were monsters under your bed, but sometimes wished there were, this just may be the series for you.
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