CBR Live! Archive
Danielle Leigh's Reading Diary -- 12/30/08
Today I examine Yumekui Kenbun: Nightmare Inspector volumes 1-4 by Shin Mashiba (published by Viz).
YK: Nightmare Inspector falls into the genre I think of as "supernatural case files," titles where supernatural means are used to solve the problems of a different person in each episode / chapter. For example, manga that falls into this category would include Petshop of Horros, xxxholic, Ghost Hunt, Rasetsu no Hana (forthcoming fromViz), and god knows how many others. The "supernatural" means in this manga are carried out by the main character, who exists as a "baku," or "nightmare eater." People with nightmares come to his shop, managed by the sister of the previous baku, and ask him to "eat" their nightmares. The process of eating usually entails a kind of subconcious dream-therapy session in which the baku, named Hiruko, and the client go into the dream and attempt to resolve the conflict that created the nightmare in the first place. Payment becomes the nightmare itself, as the baku actually survives on eating nightmares and remains quite non-human since food makes him cough blood.
I was prejudiced against this title from the start -- after all, once you've got two versions of Petshop and the truly great xxxholic is there really anything left to be done in this genre? But I found the title grew on me after the first two volumes, as I felt each case grew in intensity and complexity. Once I could no longer immediately conclude how the client's nightmare would resolve I knew I was in new territory. No longer did "good" people with good intentions come to good ends, and "bad" people with bad intentions come to "bad" ends. Since the manga appears to be Shin Mashiba's first professional work I was surprised that the writing, which began as fairly good, so quickly become quite excellent in such a short period of time.
In contrast to the writing, the art is nothing short of spectacular from the start. Set in the Taisho period in Japan (1912-1926) the artist clearly has a ball reinterpreting the patterns, textures and spaces of a traditional era, not to mention the psychadelic nature of various dream-scapes / nightmare-scapes. The art is very modern but also very shojo. My one complaint about the art is that the bodies and faces of the people are much too similar. Only the "baku," Riku stands out but that is because his hair looks like he's coming out of a sci-fi manga by Keiko Takemiya and his clothes look like a far less revealing version of something Shuichi Shindou from Gravitation would wear. In other words, his character design makes him stand out from everyone else even though it isn't clear how he managed to become influenced by post-techno-modern style way back in the Taisho era. Everyone else is shojo-pretty in era appropriate clothing and style which also renders them all practically indistinguishable should anyone happen to be in a scene with someone of their approximate age and sex. In spite of these flaws, the art lovingly depicts both the pretty and the disgusting quite beautifully and remains an essential asset to the narrative.
- Posted on December 30, 2008 @ 07:11 AM
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11 Comments
jun
December 30, 2008 at 8:24 am
I haven't read this series yet, but it's been on my radar after getting some good reviews. I'm especially interested after hearing that the cases don't keep treading familiar ground.
jun
December 30, 2008 at 9:16 am
Y'know, I think that Nightmare Inspector might actually be shounen, despite places like ICv2 and Amazon claiming it's shojo. It was serialized in Square Enix's Stencil and G Fantasy, both of which are shounen magazines. And if that weren't enough, most recent shojo licenses from Viz have been released under the Shojo Beat imprint. I can't think of any that went to the Viz Media one. Fumi Yoshinaga's latest is going to Signature, true, but it's very classy and highly-regarded, so that makes sense.
Anonymous
December 30, 2008 at 10:18 am
The art style owes its debt to shojo but other than that it is no more shojo than Petshop of Horrors or xxxholic. i.e. the magazine determines everything right? I went by the back of the manga which claims it started off Monthly Stencil (as you note) but says it is a "shojo magazine." I don't know that magazine so I can't verify that claim.
But you are right, there is a reason it went to Viz media and I only claimed that the art was very shojo, not the title itself
(Yes, I'm going to weasel my way out of this one, just you watch!)
Danielle Leigh
December 30, 2008 at 10:18 am
The art style owes its debt to shojo but other than that it is no more shojo than Petshop of Horrors or xxxholic. i.e. the magazine determines everything right? I went by the back of the manga which claims it started off Monthly Stencil (as you note) but says it is a "shojo magazine." I don't know that magazine so I can't verify that claim.
But you are right, there is a reason it went to Viz media and I only claimed that the art was very shojo, not the title itself
(Yes, I'm going to weasel my way out of this one, just you watch!)
jun
December 30, 2008 at 11:12 am
Oh, I wasn't trying to point up a mistake on your part; I did notice the distinction you made about the art.
The text calling Monthly Stencil a shojo magazine is the same I noticed on Amazon. Other sources, though, claim it's shounen. That's the same magazine, by the way, that Aqua ran in, and it's pretty universally acknowledged as shounen.
Maybe this is part of an interesting trend. Melinda Beasi recently reviewed seinen title Hitohira, which Aurora Publishing is labelling as shojo on their site.
jun
December 30, 2008 at 11:15 am
Here is one source for the shounen claim. Quite the handy guide!
Danielle Leigh
December 30, 2008 at 11:24 am
great resource! I think I would die of media overload if I lived in Japan -- there is just no way I could resist all those wonderful manga magazines. I get the lure of both the manga magazines and the collected volumes and would be one of those people who would totally pay for the same content twice (something I'm not willing to do with American comics -- it is either buy floppies or the trade, but not both).
jun
December 30, 2008 at 11:37 am
I think I might do pretty well at resisting the magazines, unless it were for a series I loved. They're so bulky, and I'd probably end up collecting stuff I wasn't really all too keen on. That said, I'm buying the Buffy Season Eight comics individually and in the trade format.
Danielle Leigh
December 30, 2008 at 11:43 am
I like the fact that you get so much value out of magazine (bulky but you just end up recycling them / throwing them away) and to be honest there are certain yaoi / shojo mags that I'd enjoy reading but probably only choose one title from the serliazation chapters -- say a Yamada Yugi or Saika Kunieda work -- as something I'd want to "keep" on the shelf as a collection.
jun
December 30, 2008 at 12:14 pm
*nodnods* That makes sense.
Ed
December 31, 2008 at 8:51 am
Stencil is definitely josei actually which AQUA is but when MgGarden and Ichijinsha broke off from Enix they took Enix's magazine fortmating - where mags generally do not cater to specific demographic. So Comic Blade and ZeroSum were nitially considered shounen (one reason why ARIA is considered shounen).. Now they have sister mags so those pubs can be more demo specific.