Reflections

Kazuo Umezo, the "Stephen King" of Japanese manga has a unique and engaging style unlike the "traditional" look we associate with Japanese manga and anime. Initially from looking at the art of Scary Book, I expected the original to have been published in Japan a few decades ago. The cherub-cheeked characters reminded me of children from Chinese herbal medicine advertisements. They seem to hark from a more innocent time, which makes the sinister images that much more unsettling. (It turns out these stories were originally published in 2003.) Scary Book Volume I contains two complete stories, but the title story, "Reflections" takes up over 3/4 of the whole book. "Reflections" tells the tale of Emi, a doll-faced beauty of a young girl who grows up in a house known as the "Mirror Mansion", named for its giant mirror, a mirror Emi has been gazing into for years. But as time goes on Emi starts getting the paranoid feeling that she is being watched. One night Emi searches for the source of the paranoia, and finds it staring back at her in the reflection in the mirror. And her reflection is not happy with her... Emi's reflection has built up resentment for her vanity, and a crack in the mirror seems to allow the reflection to escape from the mirror, and into the real world. Her reflection takes over Emi's life, and is always one step ahead of Emi while she attempts to replace the real girl, leaving Emi without a home, friends, or family. It is at this time we are introduced to Emi's love-stricken classmate, Wakatano, and his younger sister, Mitsuko. The brother and sister are constantly bickering for Emi's attention, and they seem to be the only people that acknowledge the real Emi's existence. Their competitive nature escalates to violent levels as they try to help and distract Emi. Wakatano and Mitsuko are a kind of comic relief, and their gestures and actions recall the humorous violence of comics and cartoons of previous generations. This brother and sister are probably the most bizarre pair of characters seen in comics, and their introduction in this story gives the reader an insight to Umezu's way-out way of thinking. The creepiness in "Reflections" comes from extreme contrasts of beautiful versus ugly, and vanity versus humility, in a world that is more than a bit off-center. Its frantic nature keeps the reader's blood pumping and the story's pages turning. "Demon of Vengeance" is also a story of conflict, a good versus evil tale. However, the story is a more of a fast-paced downward spiral. Just when you think things can't get worse for our hero, Muso Kondo, another gate to Hell seems to open up and a whole new world of pain it introduced. Like some of the other Dark Horse manga we have looked at (ex. Lone Wolf and Cub and Samurai Executioner), "Demon of Vengeance" is a revenge tale set in the days of the samurai. A vassal of shogun Uda is assigned to protect the shogun's son, Mitsutada, during a raid on Uda Castle. Muso's son, Shogo, acc