• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Comment Policy
    • Disclosures & Disclaimers
  • Resources
    • Links, Essays & Articles
    • Fandomology!
    • CLAMP Directory
    • BlogRoll
  • Features & Columns
    • 3 Things Thursday
    • Adventures in the Key of Shoujo
    • Bit & Blips (game reviews)
    • BL BOOKRACK
    • Bookshelf Briefs
    • Bringing the Drama
    • Comic Conversion
    • Fanservice Friday
    • Going Digital
    • It Came From the Sinosphere
    • License This!
    • Magazine no Mori
    • My Week in Manga
    • OFF THE SHELF
    • Not By Manga Alone
    • PICK OF THE WEEK
    • Subtitles & Sensibility
    • Weekly Shonen Jump Recaps
  • Manga Moveable Feast
    • MMF Full Archive
    • Yun Kouga
    • CLAMP
    • Shojo Beat
    • Osamu Tezuka
    • Sailor Moon
    • Fruits Basket
    • Takehiko Inoue
    • Wild Adapter
    • One Piece
    • After School Nightmare
    • Karakuri Odette
    • Paradise Kiss
    • The Color Trilogy
    • To Terra…
    • Sexy Voice & Robo
  • Browse by Author
    • Sean Gaffney
    • Anna Neatrour
    • Michelle Smith
    • Katherine Dacey
    • MJ
    • Brigid Alverson
    • Travis Anderson
    • Phillip Anthony
    • Derek Bown
    • Jaci Dahlvang
    • Angela Eastman
    • Erica Friedman
    • Sara K.
    • Megan Purdy
    • Emily Snodgrass
    • Nancy Thistlethwaite
    • Eva Volin
    • David Welsh
  • MB Blogs
    • A Case Suitable For Treatment
    • Experiments in Manga
    • MangaBlog
    • The Manga Critic
    • Manga Report
    • Soliloquy in Blue
    • Manga Curmudgeon (archive)

Manga Bookshelf

Discussion, Resources, Roundtables, & Reviews

Hirohiko Araki

Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga

November 19, 2017 by Katherine Dacey

Part manifesto, part how-to manual, Hirohiko Araki’s Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga is as idiosyncratic as the series that made him a household name in Japan. Araki characterizes his book as both a map, guiding the aspiring artist along the “golden way” of manga, and a tool kit for developing one’s storytelling chops. “If you were to go hiking on an unfamiliar mountain, you’d bring a map, right?” he states. “If you also have with you a foundation of mountaineering skill, you could wander onto side paths and discover unexpected scenery, and if you were to come across any dangers, you could find your way around them and still reach the summit” (12-13).

Araki’s own map to the summit was Hitchcock/Truffaut. First published in 1967, the book traced Hitchcock’s journey from title boy at Paramount’s Famous Players to director of Rear Window, analyzed Hitchcock’s signature techniques, and considered Hitchcock’s contributions to the development of film. It’s not hard to imagine why Truffaut and Hitchcock’s words beguiled Araki; they provided Araki practical tips for creating memorable characters and surprising plot twists while reassuring him that a popular medium like film or comics could, in fact, be a high art form.

That fancy pedigree helps explain what differentiates Manga in Theory and Practice from hundreds of other books aimed at the manga novice. Instead of tutorials on choosing pen nibs or drawing “manga” eyes, Araki offers a chatty, first-person treatise on writing a hit series, explaining the techniques he uses to sustain to a long-form story with examples from his favorite movies, manga, and novels. Araki also uses his own manga to illustrate how his ideas work in practice, narrating scenes from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Poker Under Arms, and Cool Shock B.T. By choosing material from every stage of his career, he allows the reader to appreciate just how much his own style has evolved through years of study, practice, and editorial critique — a valuable example for any aspiring manga artist.

The book’s core chapters — “Designing Characters,” “How to Write a Story,” “Art Expresses Everything,” “What Setting Is to Manga,” and “All Elements Connect to the Theme” — outline Araki’s process for creating characters and settings, offering sound advice about which genres are best suited to serialization. Though Araki’s techniques are highly individual, the thoroughness with which he approaches world building is a useful model for less experienced writers. Araki even includes a detailed chart for capturing “sixty facts for fleshing out your characters,” from the obvious — age, gender, size — to the mundane — handedness, favorite brands.

Another recurring theme of Manga in Theory and Practice is that art is a means to an end, not an end in itself. “What your readers will see is the artwork,” Araki observes, “but behind those drawings exist the interconnected elements of character, story, setting, and theme” (41). To illustrate this point, Araki devotes several pages to explaining the difference between signification and realism, suggesting when one technique is more effective than the other. Using Jiro Taniguchi’s Solitary Gourmet (Kodoku no Gourmet) as an example, Araki notes that the hero “is drawn as an everyday salaryman, but the food is drawn with complete realism.” By drawing Goro in less detail than the food, Araki argues, Taniguchi directs the reader’s eye to the presentation, texture, and ingredients of every dish, rather than Goro’s reaction to the meal — a subtle but effective way to highlight the uniqueness of each restaurant Goro visits (45).

Araki returns to this idea later in the book, noting that the artist’s credibility lies, in part, with his ability to convince the reader that the story is taking place in a real world where characters walk, drive, text, cook, shop, and go to school. Under the provocative heading “How to Draw Guns,” Araki explains that hands-on experience with “machinery and tools” is essential to creating a realistic setting. “If you are drawing a motorcycle or bicycle, and you don’t understand how the wheels are attached or where the handlebars are placed, the result will be unsuitable for riding upon, and your setting will become incoherent,” he notes (131-32).

As pragmatic as Araki’s advice is, the book sometimes sags under the weight of Araki’s pedantic tone; it’s a little like reading a how-to book written by Polonius or your pompous Uncle Frank. In a section titled “The Difference Between Drawing Men and Women,” for example, Araki counsels the aspiring manga-ka that “nowadays, both men and women can become heroes.” And if that advice seems self-evident, what follows is even less useful. “If anything sets apart male and female characters, it’s only visual,” he elaborates. The decision to include female characters “is purely a matter of your own taste,” he continues, “as long as your characters are appealing, you could get away with a world of all men” (58-59). Small wonder so many male comic artists have no idea how to write female characters.

More amusing is a passage in which Araki castigates Francis Ford Coppola for extending the storyline of The Godfather beyond Michael Corleone’s promotion to family don. As Araki sees it, the plot developments that follow Michael’s ascent — Fredo’s betrayal, his divorce from Kay — violate Araki’s dictum that “protagonists are always rising.” “In the sequels,” Araki opines, “Michael is beset by troubles and family betrayals in a series of realistic scenes that are brilliantly rendered, but from the point of view of the audience, are unwanted and depressing” (100). Araki does praise Coppola’s commitment to this dreary vision of mob life, but it’s hard to escape the idea that Araki is dissing Coppola for the The Godfather II‘s downbeat ending.

And while I’m tickled by Araki’s assessment of The Godfather II, these odd digressions are part of Manga in Theory and Practice‘s charm. It’s one of the few how-to manuals that seems to have been written by a flesh-and-blood person working in the industry, rather than a manga illustration bot. More importantly, Manga in Theory and Practice is a valuable reference work, filling a niche that most manga manuals ignore: how to unify images and words into a dynamic story. Recommended.

VIZ Media provided a review copy.

Works Cited

Araki, Hirohito. Manga in Theory and Practice: The Craft of Creating Manga, translated by Nathan A. Collins, VIZ Media, 2017.

Filed Under: Books, Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, How-To, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, VIZ

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Vol. 3

January 8, 2016 by Ash Brown

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 3Creator: Hirohiko Araki
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421578804
Released: August 2015
Original release: 1988

Although I had been previously aware of the manga series for some time, my real introduction to Hirohiko Araki’s multi-generational shounen epic JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was in 2012 through the standalone spinoff Rohan at the Louvre. I then proceeded to read the third story arc Stardust Crusaders, at the time the only other part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure to have been released English. It wasn’t until 2015 that Phantom Blood, the very beginning of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure was translated, published in a beautiful hardcover edition under Viz Media’s Shonen Jump imprint. When Phantom Blood was originally collected in Japan it was released in five volumes between 1987 and 1988. However, in 2002 it was re-released in three volumes which is what Viz Media’s edition is based on. Phantom Blood, Volume 3, published in English in 2015, is largely equivalent to the fourth and fifth volumes of the original Japanese release.

Having arrived in Wind Knights Lot in pursuit of his adoptive brother Dio, Jonathan Joestar must first successfully defeat two of Dio’s strongest undead minions and then traverse a town with a population that is steadily being turned into a hoard of zombies before he even has the chance to confront his brother. The Dark Knight Blueford, who is filled with hatred for the world and loyalty to Dio, is determined to take JoJo’s life. The other knight, Tarukus, is also exceptionally skilled when it comes to dealing out death and takes great delight in it. Should JoJo and his allies manage to survive their encounter with these two undead foe, they face an even more formidable adversary in Dio. Having used an ancient stone mask to turn himself into a vampire, Dio has gained untold strength and powers. Fortunately, JoJo is a quick and talented study—under the tutelage of Baron Zeppeli he has been able to begin to master Hamon energy, the only thing other than the sun itself that can harm to Dio.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 3, page 147JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure truly is a bizarre series; Phantom Blood makes this very clear from the very start. From the characters’ weird anatomy and disproportionate musculature to the story’s strange mix of melodrama, horror, and fantastic martial arts, Phantom Blood doesn’t just strain readers’ suspension of disbelief, the manga completely shatters it. Entire backstories are revealed in the time it takes for characters to tumble down cliff sides; combatants continue to live on after suffering injures that even the undead couldn’t survive; fights quickly escalate to unbelievable extremes, opponents continuously outdoing and outmaneuvering one another. Although the “why” of what’s going on is sometimes questionable, even considering Araki’s pseudo-scientific explanations, most everything is blatantly narrated by the participants and observers, so it’s fairly easy to at least follow the “what” of all of the strangeness. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is admittedly ridiculous and absurd, but that’s part of what makes the series so entertaining.

Phantom Blood is a relatively short series, especially when compared to the later story arcs of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. While Phantom Blood is a complete story in its own right, if often feels even more like a prologue to the rest of the series, laying the groundwork for all of the weirdness and machismo to come. Phantom Blood introduces the noble Joestar family—Jonathan in particular being especially gallant and large-hearted, even towards his enemies—but even more important is the introduction of Dio, an extraordinary villain. As Araki points out in the volume’s author notes, what make Dio so terrifying isn’t his impressive powers or brute strength, it’s his stunning ability to control others. Dio is arrogant but extremely charismatic, gaining many willing followers and easily manipulating those who aren’t. Phantom Blood is frequently gruesome and grotesque, with over-the-top violence, outrageous story developments, and audacious, larger-than-life characters. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a peculiar work, but I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next arc, Battle Tendency.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, manga, Shonen Jump, viz media

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 2

September 11, 2015 by Ash Brown

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 2Creator: Hirohiko Araki
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421578804
Released: May 2015
Original release: 1988

For years the only part of Hirohiko Araki’s epic and fashionably strange shōnen manga series JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure that was available in English was the third story arc, Stardust Crusaders. A standalone side story, Rohan at the Louvre was released as well, but it wasn’t until 2015 that the very beginning of the series, Phantom Blood, was translated and released in print, and in a lovely hardcover edition, too. (I have a feeling that the popularity of the recent JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure anime adaptation probably had something to do with that.) Phantom Blood was originally published in five volumes in Japan between 1987 and 1988, but in 2002 the first story arc was re-released in three volumes. Viz Media’s English-language edition is based on that 2002 release. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 2, published in 2015, collects part of the second volume, all of the third volume, and part of the fourth volume of the original Japanese release.

JoJo’s life isn’t exactly turning out the way that he would have hoped or expected. His father lays dying in his arms after having taken a fatal blow that was intended for him. Behind the knife that will end his father’s life is Dio, a man who was raised as his brother but who has turned against the Joestar family as was always his plan and intention. Not only that, Dio has gained untold powers from a mysterious and ancient stone mask. Now a vampire, Dio is nearly immortal and possesses great strength. Even he doesn’t know the full extent of his astonishing abilities, but he has already begun gathering followers who are drawn to his charisma and promises of power. With the help of a curious man named Baron Zeppeli, JoJo becomes one of the only people who might have a chance of defeating Dio. Zeppeli unlocks JoJo’s own latent talents, training him in Sendo and its use of Hamon energy, an impressive martial technique which when mastered may make it possible for JoJo to destroy Dio and save the world.

PhantomBlood2-72JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a very aptly named series. It is an exceedingly strange manga with nonstop, over-the-top action and drama. Nearly every phrase of narration and dialogue in Phantom Blood, Volume 2 is an exclamation. Even the few relatively quiet moments are fervently intense and the calm never lasts for very long. Most of the second volume of Phantom Blood consists of extended fight scenes and training sequences. Araki keeps Phantom Blood moving along at a breakneck pace which sometimes includes the actual breaking of necks. Blood, gore, dismembered body parts, splattered guts, eyeballs, and brain matter are all fairly common in the series. There is definitely a strong element of horror in the early part of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. While Araki’s artwork in Phantom Blood understandably doesn’t show the same refinement found in his later illustrations, it still has a sense of visceral dynamism and the occasional panel can actually be quite beautiful or striking.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a very odd manga. The story, artwork, and characters are all memorable if for no other reason than they are so over-the-top and strange. Additionally, Araki freely mixes historical events with historical fantasy in Phantom Blood. For example, Jack the Ripper becomes one of Dio’s earliest followers and England’s bloody dynastic struggles of the sixteenth century form a dramatic backstory for some of the other warriors that JoJo must face as he pursues his adoptive brother. Plenty of Phantom Blood is completely Araki’s own creation, though. And lest there be any confusion about all the weirdness, JoJo’s faithful and at times even useful companion Speedwagon is there to explain everything that’s going on, as well as to narrate the obvious. Speedwagon’s help isn’t needed to realize how much of a villain Dio is, though. Even before becoming a vampire Dio delighted in his own evil and the evil of others, but with his newfound powers he is in a better position than ever to make his malevolent schemes a reality. How successful he will actually be remains to be seen, but so far the results are marvelously terrifying and outrageous.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, manga, Shonen Jump, viz media

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Vol. 1

March 27, 2015 by Ash Brown

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 1Creator: Hirohiko Araki
U.S. publisher: Viz Media
ISBN: 9781421578798
Released: February 2015
Original release: 1987-1988

Hirohiko Araki’s multi-generational epic JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is one of the longest-running manga series in Japan. Araki began the series in 1986 and the manga is still ongoing at well over a hundred volumes. Between 2005 and 2010, Viz Media published the sixteen volumes of the third story arc, Stardust Crusaders, arguably on of the most popular, or at least well-known, parts of the series. In 2012, NBM Publishing released Rohan at the Louvre, a largely standalone manga related to Diamond Is Unbreakable, the fourth arc of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. Finally, in 2015, the first part of the epic, Phantom Blood was released in print in English by Viz in a beautiful, deluxe hardcover edition. Phantom Blood was originally published in Japan in five volumes between 1987 and 1988, but was reissued in three volumes in 2002. That release is the basis for Viz’s English-language edition. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Part 1: Phantom Blood, Volume 1 includes the entirety of the first volume and the majority of the second volume of the original Japanese release.

Jonathan Joestar, known as JoJo, is the son of a wealthy 19th-century English nobleman. He lost his mother while still an infant when the entire family was involved in a tragic carriage accident. JoJo survived, but his mother and the driver died and his father was severely injured. Years later, a young man named Dio Brando is sent to live with the Joestars. His father, who recently passed away, was the first person upon the scene of the carriage accident. Lord Joestar believes himself to be in Brando’s debt, under the mistaken impression that he saved his life, and so welcomes Dio with open arms. But Dio isn’t the upright character he often portrays himself to be. His intention is to destroy the Joestar family and take its wealth for his own using anyone and any means necessary, including a mysterious stone mask that grants vampiric powers. JoJo is the only person to suspect Dio isn’t all that he seems, and Dio is determined to make his life miserable. The two of them are raised as brothers, but despite JoJo’s initial attempts at friendship, there is no love lost between them.

Phantom Blood, Volume 1, page 80JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is a very aptly named series. Phantom Blood is strange and outlandish, proceeding at a breakneck pace with a tremendous amount of drama and flying fists. It’s not subtle by any means, but the series’ uninhibited, over-the-top nature is part of Araki’s style. Heightened action and drama often take precedence over logical consistencies or realism in the manga’s artwork and story. Devastating injuries that would maim or kill most people are easily disregarded or overcome by the series’ heroes and villains, although the pain and suffering they incur certainly leave an impression. JoJo and Dio fight it out on several different occasions in the first volume of Phantom Blood, each battle becoming increasingly more violent and destructive, and they are pretty bloody to being with. And that’s not even taking into account the psychological damage that also results. JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure can be brutal.

Dio is one of the most fabulous antagonists that I’ve come across in manga. Extraordinarily charismatic and completely without scruples, he makes an extremely dangerous opponent. But Dio does have flaws, and he is a much more interesting character because of them. While he is often unable to control his intense anger and arrogance, even at a young age he is able to hold people under his thrall. JoJo on the other hand, especially in comparison to Dio, is astoundingly honest, naive, and kindhearted, a gentleman through and through in both mind and deed. He uses his strength of character and impressive physical fortitude to protect his family and other people he cares about. JoJo’s repeated confrontations with Dio force hem to become even stronger as the series progresses. He grows into a formidable opponent in his own right with a firm sense of and desire for justice. The stark contrast between the two young men and the extreme dynamics of their relationship are a large part of what makes Phantom Blood such an engaging manga.

Filed Under: REVIEWS Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, manga, Shonen Jump, viz media

Rohan at the Louvre

May 11, 2012 by Katherine Dacey 9 Comments

In 2007, NBM Comics-Lit published Nicolas de Crecy’s Glacial Period, the first in a series of graphic novels commissioned by the Louvre Museum. The goal of Glacial Period — and the four books that followed it — was to introduce readers to the richness and complexity of the Louvre’s vast collections through a familiar medium: comics.

The artists’ strategies for bridging the divide between fine and sequential art have varied. In Glacial Period, for example, a team of anthropologists unearth the Louvre’s collections, which have been buried under ice for a millennium. The scientists try to make sense of the objects they discover, not unlike a group of aliens speculating about the purpose of a Coke bottle or an Etch-A-Sketch. Other novels are more fanciful: Eric Liberge’s On the Odd Hours reads like a classy version of Night at the Museum, in which the museum’s iconic pieces come to life, roaming the empty galleries until the night watchman can subdue them. Still others are explicitly historical: Bernar Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carriere’s Sky Over the Louvre, for example, stars two of the French Revolution’s best-known bad boys: Maximilien Robiespierre and David.

Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre, by contrast, takes its cues from the world of J-horror, using the Louvre as the setting for a nifty ghost story. In the book’s opening pages, we’re introduced to Rohan, an aspiring manga artist who lives with his grandmother in a nearly deserted rooming house. (N.B. Fans of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure may recognize Rohan as a minor character from one of the later volumes of the series, though prior knowledge of JoJo is not necessary for appreciating Louvre.) The unexpected arrival of a beautiful divorcee turns the normally placid household upside down with tearful drama. Within a week of her arrival, however, Nanase disappears into the night, never to be seen again.

We then jump forward ten years: Rohan, now 27, is a successful manga artist who decides to visit the Louvre to view what Nanase once described to him as “the darkest painting in the world.” The painting, he learns, has never been publicly displayed; it sits in a long-forgotten basement vault. What transpires in the bowels of the Louvre is a mixture of old-fashioned Japanese ghost story and contemporary slasher flick; if one were to update Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan for today’s audiences, the denouement of “The Black-Haired Woman” or “Hoichi the Earless” might look like the climatic scene of Rohan.

For all the gory zest with which that scene is staged, Rohan‘s artwork is uneven. Araki’s command of color is impeccable: the prelude is bathed in a golden light, while the scenes at the Louvre are rendered in a cooler palette of grey, blue, and pure black, a contrast that nicely underscores Rohan’s journey from youthful inexperience to maturity. Araki’s sexy character designs are another plus; even the most muscle-bound figures have a sensual quality to them, with full lips and eyes that that moistly beckon to the reader.

When those figures are in motion, however, Araki’s artwork is less persuasive. Rohan and Nanase’s bodies, for example, rotate along several heretofore undiscovered axes; only Power Girl and Wonder Woman twist their bodies into more anatomy-defying poses. Araki’s fondness for extreme camera angles similarly distorts his characters’ bodies, as he draws them from below, behind, or a forty-five degree angle, eschewing simple frontal views whenever possible. Such bodily distortions are meant to give depth to the picture plane, I think, but the result is curiously flat; the characters often look like paper dolls that have been bent into unnatural shapes, rather than convincing representations of walking, talking people.

What Araki’s artwork does best is convey a sense of place. The opening pages are lovely, offering us a peek into a world that is largely — though not completely — untouched by modernity. Araki takes great pains to render the boarding house’s environs — its rock garden and gnarled pine trees — as well as its interior of spartan rooms and sliding doors. We feel the stillness and seclusion of the inn, and bristle when Nanase’s cell phone pierces that tranquility.

Likewise, Araki captures the Louvre in vivid detail. He guides the reader through its galleries, marching us past the Nike of Samothrace and several rooms of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings. We follow Rohan’s gaze upwards towards vaulted ceilings encrusted in sculptural detail and elaborate frescoes, pausing to meet the gaze of the Dutch burghers and Roman gods whose images are mounted on the gallery walls. We then descend into the museum’s extensive network of tunnels and storage vaults, a veritable catacombs of neglected and obscure objects spread out over hundreds of acres. Although these dark, claustrophobic spaces make an ideal setting for a horror story, they’re also a powerful reminder of the Louvre’s history; the tunnels are remnants of a twelfth-century fortress that once occupied the site of the present-day museum.

If the artwork is, at times, overly stylized, Rohan at the Louvre is still an imaginative celebration of the Louvre Museum, conveying its scale, age, and majesty. Araki’s book is not as sophisticated or ambitious as some of the other titles in this series, but is one of the most dramatically satisfying, achieving a near-perfect balance between telling a ghost story and telling the Louvre’s own story. Recommended.

ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE • BY HIROHIKO ARAKI • NBM/COMICS-LIT • 128 pp. • NO RATING

Filed Under: Manga Critic Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, Louvre Museum, NBM/Comics Lit, Rohan at the Louvre

Rohan at the Louvre

May 11, 2012 by Katherine Dacey

In 2007, NBM Comics-Lit published Nicolas de Crecy’s Glacial Period, the first in a series of graphic novels commissioned by the Louvre Museum. The goal of Glacial Period — and the four books that followed it — was to introduce readers to the richness and complexity of the Louvre’s vast collections through a familiar medium: comics.

The artists’ strategies for bridging the divide between fine and sequential art have varied. In Glacial Period, for example, a team of anthropologists unearth the Louvre’s collections, which have been buried under ice for a millennium. The scientists try to make sense of the objects they discover, not unlike a group of aliens speculating about the purpose of a Coke bottle or an Etch-A-Sketch. Other novels are more fanciful: Eric Liberge’s On the Odd Hours reads like a classy version of Night at the Museum, in which the museum’s iconic pieces come to life, roaming the empty galleries until the night watchman can subdue them. Still others are explicitly historical: Bernar Yslaire and Jean-Claude Carriere’s Sky Over the Louvre, for example, stars two of the French Revolution’s best-known bad boys: Maximilien Robiespierre and David.

Hirohiko Araki’s Rohan at the Louvre, by contrast, takes its cues from the world of J-horror, using the Louvre as the setting for a nifty ghost story. In the book’s opening pages, we’re introduced to Rohan, an aspiring manga artist who lives with his grandmother in a nearly deserted rooming house. (N.B. Fans of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure may recognize Rohan as a minor character from one of the later volumes of the series, though prior knowledge of JoJo is not necessary for appreciating Louvre.) The unexpected arrival of a beautiful divorcee turns the normally placid household upside down with tearful drama. Within a week of her arrival, however, Nanase disappears into the night, never to be seen again.

We then jump forward ten years: Rohan, now 27, is a successful manga artist who decides to visit the Louvre to view what Nanase once described to him as “the darkest painting in the world.” The painting, he learns, has never been publicly displayed; it sits in a long-forgotten basement vault. What transpires in the bowels of the Louvre is a mixture of old-fashioned Japanese ghost story and contemporary slasher flick; if one were to update Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan for today’s audiences, the denouement of “The Black-Haired Woman” or “Hoichi the Earless” might look like the climatic scene of Rohan.

For all the gory zest with which that scene is staged, Rohan‘s artwork is uneven. Araki’s command of color is impeccable: the prelude is bathed in a golden light, while the scenes at the Louvre are rendered in a cooler palette of grey, blue, and pure black, a contrast that nicely underscores Rohan’s journey from youthful inexperience to maturity. Araki’s sexy character designs are another plus; even the most muscle-bound figures have a sensual quality to them, with full lips and eyes that that moistly beckon to the reader.

When those figures are in motion, however, Araki’s artwork is less persuasive. Rohan and Nanase’s bodies, for example, rotate along several heretofore undiscovered axes; only Power Girl and Wonder Woman twist their bodies into more anatomy-defying poses. Araki’s fondness for extreme camera angles similarly distorts his characters’ bodies, as he draws them from below, behind, or a forty-five degree angle, eschewing simple frontal views whenever possible. Such bodily distortions are meant to give depth to the picture plane, I think, but the result is curiously flat; the characters often look like paper dolls that have been bent into unnatural shapes, rather than convincing representations of walking, talking people.

What Araki’s artwork does best is convey a sense of place. The opening pages are lovely, offering us a peek into a world that is largely — though not completely — untouched by modernity. Araki takes great pains to render the boarding house’s environs — its rock garden and gnarled pine trees — as well as its interior of spartan rooms and sliding doors. We feel the stillness and seclusion of the inn, and bristle when Nanase’s cell phone pierces that tranquility.

Likewise, Araki captures the Louvre in vivid detail. He guides the reader through its galleries, marching us past the Nike of Samothrace and several rooms of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings. We follow Rohan’s gaze upwards towards vaulted ceilings encrusted in sculptural detail and elaborate frescoes, pausing to meet the gaze of the Dutch burghers and Roman gods whose images are mounted on the gallery walls. We then descend into the museum’s extensive network of tunnels and storage vaults, a veritable catacombs of neglected and obscure objects spread out over hundreds of acres. Although these dark, claustrophobic spaces make an ideal setting for a horror story, they’re also a powerful reminder of the Louvre’s history; the tunnels are remnants of a twelfth-century fortress that once occupied the site of the present-day museum.

If the artwork is, at times, overly stylized, Rohan at the Louvre is still an imaginative celebration of the Louvre Museum, conveying its scale, age, and majesty. Araki’s book is not as sophisticated or ambitious as some of the other titles in this series, but is one of the most dramatically satisfying, achieving a near-perfect balance between telling a ghost story and telling the Louvre’s own story. Recommended.

ROHAN AT THE LOUVRE • BY HIROHIKO ARAKI • NBM/COMICS-LIT • 128 pp. • NO RATING

Filed Under: Manga Critic, REVIEWS Tagged With: Hirohiko Araki, Louvre Museum, NBM/Comics Lit, Rohan at the Louvre

 | Log in
Copyright © 2010 Manga Bookshelf | Powered by WordPress & the Genesis Framework