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Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Soulless

Soulless: The Manga Vol. 1

July 11, 2013 by Anna N



Soulless: The Manga by Gail Carriger and Rem

I generally tend to steer clear of manga adaptations of books I’ve already read. I have read the first three books of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, and then I stopped following it, because of plot element that I usually find extremely annoying in romance novels. I spotted this manga version recently at my local library and decided to give it a try.

Soulless the book is a witty take on the steampunk/paranormal/historical romance genre. Heroine Alexia Tarabotti is a bit of a black sheep in her own family due to her intelligence and looks taking after her father instead of her mother. She’s also a unique and rare specimen of supernatural being because she’s a preturnatural, someone born without a soul. This gives her immunity to vampires and werewolves, which comes in handy as Victorian era London is overrun by supernatural beings.

Alexia has an encounter with a rather stupid vampire after she ducks out of a party in an attempt to find something decent to eat. This doesn’t sit well with the overbearing werewolf Lord Conall Macon, who is working for the government. Alexia and Conall insult each other and stalk off, only to find themselves thrown together again as unusual things begin to happen with the local London vampires. As a heroine, Alexia is very entertaining. She doesn’t hesitate to rescue herself by staking the odd vampire, and her status as a spinster ensures that she’s going to speak her mind without much regard for social conventions. On the other hand she has a hard time believing that anyone, even a werewolf would be attracted to her, because she’s been the topic of frequent put-downs by her family.

It is difficult to adapt an almost 400 page book into a 225 page manga. A certain amount of world building and character development does get lost in the process. The book goes into much more depth with Alexia’s relationships with the foppish vampire Akeldama and Ivy, Alexia’s good friend with horrific taste in hats. Some of the details about what exactly a preturnatural is and the more steampunkish aspects of this particular London were glossed over. But the essential plot and the developing romance between Alexia and Conall was maintained, so overall I can’t really quibble with the adaptation choices.

The art by Rem is detailed and fluid, with distinct designs for each character. The occasional lapse into chibi/wolf puppy style when Conall was in the grips of werewolf emotion was funny, and overall the art was extremely appealing. The illustrations did a good job at portraying the humorous reactions the characters have to each other even while they are dealing with plenty of suspicious supernatural incidents. Overall, I thought that this adaptation was one that fans of the book would enjoy. It also reminded me of what I liked about the prose series, so I might give the fourth book a try now.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Soulless, yen press

Comic Conversion: Soulless

March 9, 2012 by Angela Eastman 2 Comments

Soulless | Novel: Gail Carriger / Orbit Books | Manga: REM / Yen Press

Twenty-five-year-old spinster Alexia Tarabotti has a a few problems. First, she’s a spinster, and being a half-Italian in Victorian England isn’t helping. Second, she’s a preternatural, a human without a soul. And third, a vampire has just died–and it might be her fault! Alexia finds herself in the middle of a mystery involving vampire hives, royalty, and scientists, as rove vampires and lone werewolves are disappearing. In the midst of it all, Lord Maccon, the werewolf pack leader and head of the Bureau of Unnatural Registry, is taking a decided interest in her, and not just because of her preternatural powers. It’s enough to overwhelm any lady–but Alexia is out to prove that she’s much more formidable than that.

Soulless, written by Gail Carriger, is the first novel in the Parasol Protectorate, a paranormal romance/mystery series from Orbit Books. The story takes place in a Victorian England where werewolves, vampires and ghosts are not only real, but are a part of every day society. Last July, Yen Press debuted the manga adaptation of this series in Yen Plus magazine, and has just recently released the first volume in the series, trusting the artist REM (Vampire Kisses) to bring Carrriger’s steam punk supernatural romance to life.

Two pages into the Soulless novel I found myself utterly delighted with the prose. Taking on a distinct Victorian tone, Carriger uses the slight sarcasm you get from a Jane Austen novel to describe a surprise vampire battle. This creates some hilariously fancified lines (“For his part, the vampire seemed to feel that their encounter had improved his ball experience immeasurably.”) and amusing quips (“to put the pudding in the puff”) that plastered a grin on my face from the start. Of course, it pretty quickly feels like Carriger’s laying it on too thick, but luckily she seems to find a happy medium, and the tone evens out.

Soulless is a pretty steamy book, and while like most romances the “amorous activities”, as Alexia calls them, can get out of hand (making out in a jail cell? Really?) the love story never completely overshadows the mystery. The characters themselves are a treat: Alexia is smart and sharp-tongued, and despite the historical and cultural hindrances is a pretty inspiring female character. Lord Maccon is a little more one-dimensional as a gruff werewolf with a soft spot for a certain spinster, but it’s adorable to watch him fumble with human vs. werewolf courting. Members of Alexia’s immediate family fall flat: her sisters are foolish, her step-father is disconnected, and her mother is arrogant (by the end I don’t see why she would stoop to marrying an Italian in the first place). But other side characters liven up the story, with the flamboyant-but-formidable vampire Lord Akeldama, Alexia’s mildly eccentric friend Miss Hisselpenny, and Maccon’s perceptive Beta Professor Lyall, allowing our main pair to vent their thoughts while still showing plenty enough personality to make them interesting on their own.

The characters are just as appealing in the manga, with REM’s art style helping to enhance that. Akeldama is still exceptionally flamboyant, with outfits and mannerisms just as fancy and theatrical as I imagined. His exuberant, italicized dialogue is cut down a bit, but his sly smiles and occasional shift to a super-deformed look gives him the energetic feel of a mischievous child. Lord Maccon maintains his roughness in dialogue, though REM gives him a cleaner look than I would have pictured. Still, his care and interest in Miss Tarabotti is both more amusing (an arrow leads his gaze right down Alexia’s cleavage), and more endearing. REM also seems to know enough not to let text boxes overwhelm the art. Because of this, the occasional heavy-handedness of Carriger’s Victorian prose is eliminated, leaving us only with the delightful bits (“I say!” says Alexia as a vampire tries to kill her. “We have not been introduced!”).

The pacing of the comic is generally very even, with a good balance between the supernatural mystery and the romantic plot. On a couple of occasions REM chose to cut scenes out. Much of the deletion has little affect on either the flow or understanding of the story, like when Alexia’s mother and half-sisters return from a shopping trip: while it’s interesting in that it deepens the reasons for Alexia’s dislike of her own family, all this scene does is emphasize her sisters’ frivolousness and her mother’s condescension, things we’ve picked up on well enough. This scene is not missed, but another, when pudgy scientist Mr. MacDougal takes Alexia on a carriage ride, is a little more noticeable. While the book has him taking her around town as he explains his scientific theories, the comic only shows the end of the ride, when he drops Alexia off, and she merely comments that he had some “interesting theories on the soul.” Readers may be able to guess the conversation based on the dinner from a few pages earlier, but the main problem lies in the abruptness of the scene, giving the distinct feeling of something having been hacked out.

Both versions of Soulless had a couple of missteps in pacing that momentarily jarred me out of the story, and the romance scenes didn’t always have the best timing, considering the other tensions going on. But I easily jumped right back into the flow, and the romance is sexy enough to make up for the occasional poor placement. Soulless could have gone the route of many a paranormal romance novel, making the supernatural plot nothing more than a cheap gimmick, but Carriger manages to create not only an enticing romance but also an engrossing mystery and a fleshed out, believable fantasy world. REM’s art style and sense of panel layout gives us an adaptation that’s just as enjoyable, so in this case I say pick your favorite medium – you can’t go wrong either way.

Filed Under: Comic Conversion Tagged With: Grace Carriger, manga, Orbit Books, Rem, Soulless, yen press

Off the Shelf: GTO, Twilight, Soulless

March 1, 2012 by MJ and Michelle Smith 9 Comments

MJ: Well, hello there, my friend!

MICHELLE: For some reason I am inclined to respond to that with, “‘Allo, poppet!”

MJ: Well. That’s interesting indeed. I’ll admit I’m not quite sure how to respond to that. Perhaps, instead, I’ll change the subject. Read any good manga this week?

MICHELLE: I did. Kind of unexpectedly good, in both cases!

One of the things I read was the first volume of GTO: 14 Days in Shonan by Toru Fujisawa (published by Vertical, Inc.). I knew absolute nothing about the GTO franchise going into it, and therefore had no idea what to expect. The initial setup, which explains how ex-delinquent-now-teacher Eikichi Onizuka has to lay low for a while and decides to do so in his hometown of Shonan, caused me a bit of concern, since it involves the hapless protagonist getting into all sorts of trouble and a comedic sensibility that put me in mind of Detroit Metal City, which, as you know, was not my cup of tea.

Once Eikichi gets to Shonan, however, things begin looking up. He meets up with an attractive young woman named Ayame Shiratori, who was classmates with one of his coworkers. She’s heard that Onizuka has done wonders with his students and wonders if he’d help out at White Swan Children’s Home for a bit. Since he has no place else to go—and since he would like to roger Ayame—he agrees. Although the hostility of one of the students, Katsuragi, is immediate and rather over-the-top, I warmed to the series once Onizuka showed a real flair for getting through to miserable teens, each the victim of selfish parents.

He does it so naturally that it doesn’t feel like Fujisawa is imparting some Important Moral Lesson. Essentially, he treats them like people and instinctively understands how to draw them out. And he’s willing to put his money where his mouth is and defend them with everything he’s got when they are threatened. For kids who’ve come to distrust the sincerity of adults, an idiot—but a genuinely honest idiot—like him may be exactly what they need.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to track down the other GTO volumes that have come out in English, but I am at least looking forward to volume two!

MJ: Well, as Detroit Metal City decidedly was my cup of tea, I’m intrigued all-around! Like you, I knew almost nothing about GTO before Vertical announced this license, and I’ll admit I was initially hesitant, thinking it might be hard for a newcomer to jump in at this point. But it sounds like this is really not an obstacle.

MICHELLE: Not at all. Aside from a couple of brief appearances in the beginning, 14 Days in Shonan features an entirely new cast of characters. It’s interesting, too, that it’s kind of slipped into a two-week period of the main story during which most people assumed Onizuka was recuperating in the hospital.

So, what’ve you been reading this week?

MJ: Well, I didn’t fare quite as well as you, though ultimately it was a good week. I began with the second volume of Young Kim’s graphic novel adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. And while my reaction to the first volume was something along the lines of, “This was more readable than expected,” I’m afraid the second volume didn’t go down quite so easily.

To be clear from the get-go, none of my issues are Young Kim’s fault, and I expect I’m ultimately grateful to be reading this series in a less prose-heavy format than the original. And really, my biggest qualms about this volume aren’t even about the weirdly overt racism or the less-than-subtle lessons in sexual abstinence. What really made this volume so difficult for me to get through was my increasing anger over the fact that Stephenie Meyer did not see fit to grant her heroine even a single personal interest outside of her creepy, undead boyfriend.

Bella has no thoughts or desires that don’t revolve around Edward. She has no apparent interests in school. She doesn’t even have a hobby. Her entire existence—her very identity revolves around her feelings for a boy. And though there may have been times as a teenager when I felt utterly consumed by my feelings for whatever boy I was crushing on, those were just isolated (if intense) moments, scattered amongst the hours upon hours I spent reading, writing, playing music, arguing about politics, and thinking about the multitude of things that interested and/or enchanted me in the great wide world.

Honestly, even if this didn’t make me angry as an adult woman and a feminist, who longs to see a world filled with great, empowering fiction for girls, it makes me utterly unable to identify with Twilight‘s protagonist, even from the point of view of my distant teenaged self. Though I never like hearing female readers say they “hate” a female protagonist (because, seriously, it’s not the character’s fault she was so gravely shortchanged by her creator, is it?), I have to admit that Bella is the greatest obstacle standing between me and enjoyment of Twilight, even as a guilty pleasure. And that’s really a shame.

MICHELLE: I had a similar reaction when I read the book, in which Bella demonstrates some alarming passivity when she learns about the various creepy things Edward has been doing, including breaking into her house to watch her sleep. When I learned that a friend’s daughter was reading the series, I felt I needed to warn her parents so they’d be sure to give her the “if any boy ever does this to you, please know that it is not romantic” speech.

To address an issue specific to the graphic novel release… some folks were critical of the typeface in the first volume, I believe, as well as the placement of speech bubbles. Did you notice any discernable change in those areas?

MJ: The style of the second volume is the same as the first, in that it uses very non-comics-y fonts, and the way the speech bubbles look is also not what I’m used to in the comics I read. However, I never found this to be as problematic as a lot of critics did, and I rather like Kim’s art style, so I’m good with it. If anything, the artwork is one of the things I was able to enjoy in the book.

So, since we’re on the topic of Yen Press “manga” adaptations, shall we move on to a title we both read this week?

MICHELLE: Let’s do!

MJ: Well, when I read Kate’s review of REM’s new adaptation of Gail Carriger’s Soulless, I thought suddenly that it would be a great choice to read alongside Twilight. Both are OEL adaptations of popular novels, and both revolve around a heroine who lives in a world alongside vampires and werewolves. Unlike Twilight, I had very little knowledge of the details of Soulless, and though I expected I might like it more than Twilight, I was not really prepared for how much more.

Alexia Tarabotti is a 26-year-old “spinster” in Victorian London, a life complicated even more by the fact that she’s also a “preternatural,” a person without a soul whose purpose is to bridge the gap between the supernatural and natural worlds. Alexia’s London is filled with vampires and werewolves, most of whom are highly regarded (and highly organized) members of society. As the story opens, Alexia accidentally kills a vampire who attacks her at a party—an event that throws supernatural society into a bit of a tizzy. Fortunately, the tizzy also rather hurries along Alexia’s long-time flirtation with Lord Conall Maccon, a well-regarded werewolf who may actually be a match for her.

MICHELLE: I too knew nothing about Soulless going in and was pleasantly surprised by REM’s adaptation. Although I think I would probably enjoy the novel even more—while the relationship between Alexia and Lord Maccon is a lot of fun, the mystery plot involving missing and unaffiliated werewolves and vampires gets short shrift—the graphic novel is still tremendously enjoyable, with plenty of witty dialogue (seriously, all you need do to amuse me is mention hedgehogs), lovely supporting characters (Lord Akeldama and Ayame Sohma… separated at birth?), and a pair of strong leads whom I like and sincerely root for as a couple. I also enjoyed how enthusiastic Alexia was to make out with him once she had the chance.

MJ: Yes, it really is a treat to kind of adore both members of the story’s primary couple, isn’t it? I really do adore them both. And oh, Lord Akeldama… first of all, you’re on the nose with the Ayame Sohma (though Akeldama has the benefit of not being quite as self-absorbed), and secondly, I think one of my favorite moments in the entire volume was when Alexia, whose soulless nature allows her to render vampires and werewolves to their form closest to human with only her touch, grants his request to accompany him outside so that he can view the sunset.

I’ll also agree that reading this made me quite anxious to try the novel, and I’ll confess I’ve already bought the e-book to read on my iPad.

MICHELLE: And I’m going to buy the audiobook next time I get a new Audible credit!

There are a couple of key things that make Alexia a better protagonist than Bella. For one, to directly contrast what you said before, she actually has a life outside her love interest. We don’t see much of her hobbies, true, but she visits with a couple of friends and attends social events with her family. For another, she desperately wants to be useful, and suggests several times that she be allowed to help Conall with his work for the Bureau of Unnatural Registry. One gets the impression she’d be a rather kickass demon hunter if she weren’t living in Victorian England.

MJ: Yes, exactly, there’s a constant sense that Alexia is desperately oppressed by the constraints forced upon her, both by her place in society and her gender, and that she longs for opportunities to use her brains to really do something in the world. One of the things that makes her fiery relationship with Conall so appealing, is that they’re both characters who possess exceptionally strong will.

If there’s one issue I have with the graphic novel adaptation, aside from the lack of page time available for its non-romantic plotline, it’s that Alexia is repeatedly referred to as plain, yet is drawn by REM as a voluptuous beauty. Now, I’m not exactly complaining (she’s a voluptuous beauty that even female readers can appreciate), but it might have been a nice touch if she looked just a tad less like a comic book heroine, and more like an average woman. She’s an awesome enough character to be irresistibly attractive with or without being so conventionally gorgeous on the outside, and actually “plain” women are tragically underrepresented in comics.

MICHELLE: Yes, REM’s rendering of Alexia takes heaving bosoms to a whole new level. I was wondering how someone could remain a spinster so long with attributes like that! It’s almost like drawing Elizabeth Bennet with giant knockers, in that it makes the hero just a little less special for seeing in her what others don’t.

MJ: I think I could totally buy the heaving bosoms (let’s face it, in a corset, any woman not shaped like a stick is subject to heaving bosoms) if she’d been just a little chunkier and less dazzling otherwise. But overall, it’s a small complaint. This is the first of Yen Press’ novel adaptations that has grabbed me so immediately, and I’m not only looking forward to reading the novel, but to reading the second volume of the adaptation.

MICHELLE: Same here. And though it may be insanely early to call it, I have a feeling this will turn out to be the best novel-to-manga adaptation of 2012!

MJ: I suspect you may be right!

Filed Under: OFF THE SHELF Tagged With: gto, Soulless, twilight

Pick of the Week: Soulless, Higurashi, Kizuna

February 20, 2012 by MJ, Sean Gaffney and Michelle Smith 2 Comments

Things pick up this week at Midtown Comics, just in time for Presidents’ Day. Though we’re a bit short-staffed at Manga Bookshelf today, MJ, Sean, & Michelle have some books they’re excited to buy!


MJ: I’m a bit torn this week, I have to admit. On one hand, I’d like to recommend the latest volume of Nabari no Ou—the only manga to ever get me even remotely interested in ninja—or perhaps volume four of Bloody Monday, which I can’t help liking, despite its unbelievable premise. But after reading Kate’s recent review of Soulless, I think it’s won my vote. An “agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne”?? Where do I sign up? I’ll be the first to admit that Yen Press’ “manga” adaptations of popular novels have mostly missed with me, but this one sounds like it’s right up my alley. Definitely a must-buy!

SEAN: As I noted in my Manga The Week Of post, I always get happier when I see a new volume of Higurashi: When They Cry. A combination of harem manga, horror manga, and mystery, it’s the bonds of friendship elements that keep me coming back. One Piece fans popularized the Western use of ‘Nakama’, a word meant to convey a close bond between a group that’s not quite family or friends, but something deeper – something unshakeable. Of course, with the Higurashi series that type of relationship is a long and unstable process, and we’ve seen in past arcs how mistrust and paranoia can ruin everything. Rena’s friends have helped her hide a corpse in the last volume… but was that really the right thing to do? Gripping stuff.

MICHELLE: There are certain titles that, when I see them on this list, everything else just sort of falls away. So, while I am definitely very keen to read Soulless, I must seize the opportunity to recommend Kazuma Kodaka’s landmark BL series, Kizuna, now in its fifth (and presumably final) volume. Maybe the trials and tribulations of yakuza in love just isn’t your thing, but the way the stories are told and the unique artwork are things that every BL fan should experience.

Readers, what looks good to you this week?

Filed Under: PICK OF THE WEEK Tagged With: higurashi when they cry, kizuna, Soulless

Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1

February 18, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 17 Comments

Soulless is saucy in the best possible sense of the word: it’s bold and smart, with a heroine so irrepressible you can see why author Gail Carriger couldn’t tell Alexia Tarabotti’s story in just one book.

As fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate novels know, Alexia is a sharp-tongued woman living in Victorian London — or rather, a steampunk version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves co-exist with the “daylight” (read: “human”) world. As she would in the real nineteenth-century England, Alexia faces pressure to marry, a prospect complicated by her age — she’s twenty-six — her ethnicity — her father was Italian — and her prodigious intellect. Alexia has one additional strike against her, albeit one that doesn’t affect her marriageability: she’s soulless, a “preternatural” being who can neutralize the vampires and werewolves’ power, temporarily reducing them to mortal form.

Plot-wise, Soulless is an agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne for good measure. The basic storyline is a whodunnit: Alexia becomes the prime suspect in a string of supernatural disappearances around London, and must collaborate with Lord Collan Maccon, a belligerent werewolf detective, to clear her name. What they discover in the course of their investigation is a grand conspiracy worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with evil scientists, vampire “hives,” sinister-looking laboratories, and a golem; all that’s missing is the Ark of the Covenant and a few Nazi generals.

At the same time, Soulless is a romance. Alexia would make a swell Austen heroine, as she faces the kind of obstacles to marriage that would elicit sympathy from the Dashwood girls and Fanny Price. The greatest of these hurdles isn’t her name or her age, however; it’s Alexia’s firm conviction that marriage should not be a socially or financially expedient union, but a true partnership. Paging Elizabeth Bennett!

Given how many genres are present in the text — it’s a crime procedural, a thriller, an urban fantasy, a comedy of manners, and a bodice ripper — it’s astonishing how well all the tropes mesh. Some of that success can be attributed to the dialogue. The characters’ peppery exchanges are an affectionate parody of British costume dramas; substitute “soulless” for “penniless,” and Alexia could easily be a character in Sense and Sensibility. A few passages strain too hard for effect — would anyone have really chosen “comestibles” over “food” when complaining about a party? — but for the most part, Carriger finds a convincing tone that’s neither faux-archaic nor casually contemporary.

Soulless’ other great strength is its appealing cast of characters. Alexia and Maccon are clearly the stars of this imaginary universe; anyone who’s read Middlemarch or Emma will immediately recognize that Alexia and Maccon are The Main Couple, as they spend most of volume one denying their mutual attraction and trading zingers. (“I may be a werewolf and Scottish, but despite what you may have read about both, we are not cads!” Maccon declares in a fit of Darcy-esque pique.) In the spirit of the best nineteenth-century novels, however, Carriger situates her lovebirds inside a vibrant community, albeit one inhabited by grumpy werewolves and flamboyant vampires in lieu of parsons, baronets, and virtuous maidens. Though these supporting characters don’t always get the screen time they deserve, Lord Akeldama, Professor Lyall, and Ivy Hisselpenny enliven the narrative with sharp observations and sound advice for Alexia and Maccon.

Manga artist Rem, best-known for her work on Vampire Kisses, does a fine job of translating Carriger’s prose into pictures. Though Rem’s attention to period detail is evident in the characters’ sumptuous costumes and lavishly furnished parlors, her meticulousness extends to the action sequences as well. An early fight between Alexia and a vampire is expertly staged, making effective use of dramatic camera angles and overturned furniture to capture the intensity of their struggle. Rem also manages to fold many of Carriger’s steampunk flourishes — zeppelins, steam-powered carriages, “glassicals” — into the story without overwhelming the eye; if anything, I found the subtlety of the steampunk elements an improvement on the novel, where the object descriptions sometimes felt like tangents.

The only drawback to the artwork is Alexia herself. In the novels, Carriger describes her as plain and full-figured; in the manga, however, Rem depicts Alexia as a buxom, wasp-waisted babe with a pouty mouth and a pretty face. That transformation is certainly in keeping with manga aesthetics — even the plainest young characters are usually pleasing to the eye — but not with the source material; as a reader, one of the real pleasures of Soulless is watching the heroine triumph on the strength of her character and brains, not the size of her bust.

On the whole, however, Rem has succeeded in taking a justifiably popular novel and making it work in a different medium on its own terms; readers new to Carriger’s work will be as enchanted with this cheeky, fun adaptation as her hardcore fans. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one of Soulless: The Manga will be released in March 2012.

SOULLESS: THE MANGA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY GAIL CARRIGER, ART AND ADAPTATION BY REM • YEN PRESS •  208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (VIOLENCE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, NUDITY)

Filed Under: Manga Critic Tagged With: Gail Carriger, Rem, Soulless, steampunk, Vampires, Werewolves, yen press

Soulless: The Manga, Vol. 1

February 18, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

Soulless is saucy in the best possible sense of the word: it’s bold and smart, with a heroine so irrepressible you can see why author Gail Carriger couldn’t tell Alexia Tarabotti’s story in just one book.

As fans of Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate novels know, Alexia is a sharp-tongued woman living in Victorian London — or rather, a steampunk version of Victorian London in which vampires and werewolves co-exist with the “daylight” (read: “human”) world. As she would in the real nineteenth-century England, Alexia faces pressure to marry, a prospect complicated by her age — she’s twenty-six — her ethnicity — her father was Italian — and her prodigious intellect. Alexia has one additional strike against her, albeit one that doesn’t affect her marriageability: she’s soulless, a “preternatural” being who can neutralize the vampires and werewolves’ power, temporarily reducing them to mortal form.

Plot-wise, Soulless is an agreeable mishmash of Young Sherlock Holmes, Underworld, and Mansfield Park, with a dash of Jules Verne for good measure. The basic storyline is a whodunnit: Alexia becomes the prime suspect in a string of supernatural disappearances around London, and must collaborate with Lord Collan Maccon, a belligerent werewolf detective, to clear her name. What they discover in the course of their investigation is a grand conspiracy worthy of an Indiana Jones movie, complete with evil scientists, vampire “hives,” sinister-looking laboratories, and a golem; all that’s missing is the Ark of the Covenant and a few Nazi generals.

At the same time, Soulless is a romance. Alexia would make a swell Austen heroine, as she faces the kind of obstacles to marriage that would elicit sympathy from the Dashwood girls and Fanny Price. The greatest of these hurdles isn’t her name or her age, however; it’s Alexia’s firm conviction that marriage should not be a socially or financially expedient union, but a true partnership. Paging Elizabeth Bennett!

Given how many genres are present in the text — it’s a crime procedural, a thriller, an urban fantasy, a comedy of manners, and a bodice ripper — it’s astonishing how well all the tropes mesh. Some of that success can be attributed to the dialogue. The characters’ peppery exchanges are an affectionate parody of British costume dramas; substitute “soulless” for “penniless,” and Alexia could easily be a character in Sense and Sensibility. A few passages strain too hard for effect — would anyone have really chosen “comestibles” over “food” when complaining about a party? — but for the most part, Carriger finds a convincing tone that’s neither faux-archaic nor casually contemporary.

Soulless’ other great strength is its appealing cast of characters. Alexia and Maccon are clearly the stars of this imaginary universe; anyone who’s read Middlemarch or Emma will immediately recognize that Alexia and Maccon are The Main Couple, as they spend most of volume one denying their mutual attraction and trading zingers. (“I may be a werewolf and Scottish, but despite what you may have read about both, we are not cads!” Maccon declares in a fit of Darcy-esque pique.) In the spirit of the best nineteenth-century novels, however, Carriger situates her lovebirds inside a vibrant community, albeit one inhabited by grumpy werewolves and flamboyant vampires in lieu of parsons, baronets, and virtuous maidens. Though these supporting characters don’t always get the screen time they deserve, Lord Akeldama, Professor Lyall, and Ivy Hisselpenny enliven the narrative with sharp observations and sound advice for Alexia and Maccon.

Manga artist Rem, best-known for her work on Vampire Kisses, does a fine job of translating Carriger’s prose into pictures. Though Rem’s attention to period detail is evident in the characters’ sumptuous costumes and lavishly furnished parlors, her meticulousness extends to the action sequences as well. An early fight between Alexia and a vampire is expertly staged, making effective use of dramatic camera angles and overturned furniture to capture the intensity of their struggle. Rem also manages to fold many of Carriger’s steampunk flourishes — zeppelins, steam-powered carriages, “glassicals” — into the story without overwhelming the eye; if anything, I found the subtlety of the steampunk elements an improvement on the novel, where the object descriptions sometimes felt like tangents.

The only drawback to the artwork is Alexia herself. In the novels, Carriger describes her as plain and full-figured; in the manga, however, Rem depicts Alexia as a buxom, wasp-waisted babe with a pouty mouth and a pretty face. That transformation is certainly in keeping with manga aesthetics — even the plainest young characters are usually pleasing to the eye — but not with the source material; as a reader, one of the real pleasures of Soulless is watching the heroine triumph on the strength of her character and brains, not the size of her bust.

On the whole, however, Rem has succeeded in taking a justifiably popular novel and making it work in a different medium on its own terms; readers new to Carriger’s work will be as enchanted with this cheeky, fun adaptation as her hardcore fans. Recommended.

Review copy provided by Yen Press. Volume one of Soulless: The Manga will be released in March 2012.

SOULLESS: THE MANGA, VOL. 1 • STORY BY GAIL CARRIGER, ART AND ADAPTATION BY REM • YEN PRESS •  208 pp. • RATING: OLDER TEEN (VIOLENCE, SEXUAL SITUATIONS, NUDITY)

Filed Under: Manga, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Gail Carriger, Rem, Soulless, steampunk, Vampires, Werewolves, yen press

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