Manga Review: Tanpenshu Volume 1

[Floating_Sakura]

Tanpenshu volume 1
Author: Hiroki Endo
Published: Dark Horse, 2007, USD 12.95
Genre: Seinen

Tanpenshu is a collection of Hiroki Endo's short stories, of which this volume reproduces three.

"The Crows, the Girl, and the Yakuza" is the story of Aoki, a yakuza (gang) boss who, critically wounded in an internal dispute, is rescued by a girl. The girl, like the crows she takes care of, lives as a scavenger, and she takes care of Aoki tenderly, as she would with one of her crows. However, Aoki is still a hunted man with danger at his heels, and the haven he finds among the crows is always in jeopardy.

"Because You're Definitely a Cute Girl" tells of Mina Tamura, a teenage girl troubled by her emerging awareness of sex and the transformations of adolescence, senescence, and death, compounded by her witnessing the passing of most of her family.

"For Those of Us Who Don't Believe in God" shows alternating glimpses of the lives of a college theater troupe and the play they perform.

Endo does not skimp on explicit details in these stories -- the gun, the bullet-hole, the pool of blood, the dead body -- but neither does he dwell on them. The reflections of the stories and the characters who articulate them are subjects that people typically avoid and find disturbing -- for example, the crow girl's musing on the fate of dead bodies, whether cremated or eaten by crows; Tamura's obsession with sex and change; Tajima's (the writer/director of the play) working through his turbulent history with his father by writing a play about a serial killer. However, Endo treats them in such a way as to expose their good side -- for example, the body turned to crow shit, equally to the one turned to smoke, serves as nutrition for plants; the sexual organs of plants (flowers) are attractive even to other species (humans;) and even when one is wronged (as the woman in the play whose brother was murdered and who herself was raped and nearly murdered, as well as Tajima, the playwright, who was abused by his father,) one can still forgive. Yes, these stories are deeply disturbing, and I may have nightmares from them, but they are not likewise deeply depressing -- they offer hope as well, unequivocally -- and that is what, to me, makes them not only bearable but beautiful.

Tanpenshu requires emotional and intellectual investment, as well as maturity, and for this reason I do not recommend it as a brainless flick or for young or impressionable readers. In both cases the stories will be incomprehensible. Reservations aside, these are exceptional stories, rich in imagery and symbolism (and hence not entirely literal,) and well worth the time and attention for those with an inclination to explore the twilight facets of existence.

Reviewed by: anitra
Proofed by: RainyFrog
Edited by: Firedog

Order Tanpenshu Volume 1 through Amazon.com!