Tegami Bachi Vol. 1

By Hiroyuki Asada
Published by Viz

I bought Tegami Bachi while cleaning out a closing Borders Express. The cover art really grabbed me and a quick flip through the pages revealed some great artwork. I finally found a moment to sit down and read it and figured the ol' blog could use an update.

The overall concept of the manga is fascinating. The world is divided into three landmasses separated by concentric rivers. Citizens are divided according to class and require government-issued passes to travel across the bridges that connect the cities.

Perhaps my favorite part of this world is that there is no natural light at all, so the elite upper class have a man-made star built for their themselves. The outer towns don't have the resources to make another (so far, that's the only explanation I can come up with) and the outskirt towns have no light at all.

It is in the darkest part of the world that the story begins. Asada introduces readers to this world through an adventure of a Letter Bee: a government worker charged with delivering the mail throughout the world. His name is Gauche Suede (which is a truly awful combination of words) and he and his travel dog, Roda, find a mail post with a young boy chained to it. The Letter Bees all make use of the Nuremberg defense, which allows them to keep doing their jobs.

The act of chaining children to mail posts is a recurring plot point in volume one, which makes it impossible for me to want to pick up any further volumes. Gauche's original "letter" is named Lag and the story shifts over to Lag a few years later as he is leaving the town to become a Letter Bee. Along the way, he comes across a girl chained up to be mailed. She has insufficient postage and no return address, so she's left alone and untouched by every Letter Bee around. Lag offers to deliver her since he's not a full-fledge Bee and is allowed to assist in unpaid human trafficking.

Lag names her Niche and delivers her straight into the hands of some creepy men running a freak show. They've been after Niche because she is rumored to possess a "golden sword" because her mother ate some mythical creature. The sword in question turns out to be her hair and she destroys the tent and takes off. All of this begs the question: if she can turn her hair into a bladed edge, why the hell did she stay chained up in the first place? I can't believe not a single editor called Asada out on that and made him change it.

I'll finish with a little discussion of the art. Asada draws some really great landscapes. The star-studded skies are all beautiful to look at. His character designs aren't bad, either. What is bad, though, is the way he draws tears. Sometimes it even looks like the characters are oozing cottage cheese from their eyes. This wouldn't be much of an issue, if it weren't for the fact that someone seems to cry on every other page.

Tegami Bachi is a great concept with a botched execution. I really want to like it but there are so many flaws I know I won't be picking up any more volumes.

MW: Scattered Thoughts (That May Form an Article)

As mentioned in a previous post, I've been trying to get myself to read more of the established "classics" of manga. I now own volume one of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (although Kodansha's decision to publish it in left-to-right has me awfully puzzled), Yoshihiro Tatsumi's "A Drifting Life", and a whole mess of Tezuka's catalog.

While Frederik Schodt has spoken extremely high praise of Astro Boy, I decided to start with a different title. When RightStuf had a huge sale, I picked up a few of Tezuka's giganto-manga. Apollo's Song, Ode to Kirihito, and MW are all door-stops of manga, weighing in at 500+ pages each.

Of those three, the title that sticks out most in my mind is MW, which the dust jacket labels as Tezuka's darkest work. I can see that, easily. The amount of dismemberment, sexual depravity, and misogyny is tremendous. Compared to the more wholesome image of Astro Boy, MW seems like it came from a very different man with the same name.

The main characters struggle with serious moral dilemmas. Actually, on second thought, only one of them does. Michio Yuki, arguably the "villain" of the story, has been exposed to a chemical weapon which has robbed him of a moral compass. His friend, a priest named Garai, hears all of Yuki's confessions and serves as the one who pardons him.

What keeps Garai from turning Yuki in is the fact that they have consummated a homosexual relationship. Garai, while physically attracted to Yuki, is always repulsed by Yuki's actions, which involve blackmailing, kidnapping, rape, and murder.

Several scenes with Yuki left me feeling completely disgusted, sometimes to the point of putting the book down and walking away. Even so, I remained intrigued by Yuki's character and wanted to see if he was capable of reform.

Tezuka's portrayal of homosexuality is surprisingly non-stereotypical, considering the time at which it was written. While their relationship is far from "loving", Tezuka does not use it insult Garai's integrity. Instead, it is used by Yuki to manipulate Garai and mess with his feelings and thoughts. The idea of being in love with Yuki throws all of Garai's judgments into disarray, which is an idea normally portrayed by a heterosexual relationship in the manga I'm used to reading. To see it presented in a different fashion works well.

As Yuki's crimes become more and more disturbing, it becomes painfully clear that the man is beyond any possible redemption. Despite the eternal optimism of Garai (who thinks "if I help him one more time, he might see the light), even his patience is worn away as Yuki continues to destroy the lives of everyone around him.

The ending is gimmicky and predictable. Along the way, though, the sense of tragedy never fades. Yuki may be the most evil person in the manga, but the entire time you can't help but notice how Garai--and Tezuka--place the blame on the military forces which created the chemical weapons. It's a super-thinly-veiled anti-war message that pervades so much of Japanese culture following the atomic bombing of their country.

MW is best read when spaced out over a longer stretch of time. Each chapter takes some time to digest (and, sometimes, the hope that you might forget a certain scene or two), and the overall sinister tone can become overbearing if read in huge chunks.

I'll offer up a few more Tezuka reviews as time passes. MW provides a very different (and very messed up) tale from the most famous name in manga history.

NanoWriMo

I spent the second half of November writing for National Novel Writing Month. I'm just shy of the 25k mark today (the goal is to churn out 50k in 30 days). This (along with doing reviews for MR) has taken up a ton of my extra time after work.

The other big thing is that I've burned out on anime, which takes away from many things I could be writing for this blog. The new season of anime is abysmal and I haven't felt like catching up on anything I've missed.

Manga, though, that isn't a problem. I still love the stuff. I've been on a big Tezuka kick. Maybe I can find some time to do a write up on MW, Buddha, Ode to Kirihito, Apollo's Song, and a few other Tezuka titles I've perused recently.

Later!

Not Dead

Simply re-adjusting to a change in work habits. Things should go back to more regular updates in the next week or so.

I've been writing, just not for this blog. There will be new posts soon.

MR: Yotsuba&!

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to review volumes 1 - 6 of Yen Press' versions of Yotsuba&! Check out my review, as it is, so far, the only title I've deemed to be A+ material.

New Minis!

Check out my write-ups on Volume 30 of Case Closed and Volume 5 of Psycho Busters here.

Two New MR Features!

I suffered an allergic reaction to Cat Paradise's first volume and had a frightfully good time reading volume six of Bizenghast.