Shirley 1

Kaoru Mori is best known in the United States for her manga Emma, a romance between a wealthy man and a maid in Victorian England. Shirley is a collection of her earlier work, and while it lacks the complexity of Emma, it has a simple charm of its own. The first five stories revolve around a 13-year-old girl who comes to work as a maid to Bennett Cranley, a career woman who owns a café. The first three are so simple that they are almost haiku: Shirley gets the job; Bennett buys Shirley a doll; Shirley wishes she had blonde hair like Bennett, but Bennett wishes she had dark hair like Shirley. The other two hint at more complexity, as Bennett has what might be a romantic encounter and endures withering criticism from an aunt who wants her to settle down with a man. These episodes are tantalizing because we see them mostly through Shirley's eyes. We never find out who the mysterious man is, or why Bennett sits up all night by the fire after meeting him. The other two stories in this slim volume keep the same subject matter but bring in a new cast. In "Me and Nellie One Afternoon," a maid plays surrogate mother to a lonely boy and helps him take care of a lost bird. Mori invests this simple story with surprising emotional depth, and the ending is unexpected but poignant. The final story, "Mary Banks," is the most imaginative: An old man tortures his maid and house steward with practical jokes, including a complicated one that is set in motion only when he dies. That story alone is worth the price of the book. In Emma, Mori crowds the pages with detail and often breaks up a single act into a series of tiny panels. Here, the panels are larger and her art is simpler, cleaner, and more restrained. She brings in period detail where it counts--a lamp, a corset, a teacup--but the backgrounds are vague and figures often float in white space. She also uses the conventions of sequential art to their fullest, spreading a movement across the page in a series of vertical panels or lingering on a small detail to set a scene. Mori is definitely of the "show, don't tell" school of storytelling. Many of her panels are wordless, and she shows the characters' emotions through small gestures or simply a moment of stillness. Interior monologue is replaced by a sigh or a glance in a mirror. The last two stories have more dialogue, but the mood is similar: The story is told not in the conversations between the main characters but in the casual talk that goes on behind the scenes, as the maids, gardeners, and stewards go about their work. At the end of the book, Mori adds a loosely drawn comic in which she discusses how she got the idea for some of her stories and who the characters are based on. Usually, manga creators fill these extra comics with trivia, but Mori is actually quite interesting, although she apologizes more than is necessary. -- Brigid Alverson

The story is very sweet. This is not a beginning of a new Kaoru Mori series, but short stories that she practiced before writing Emma. (Morisan did say that she might continue on the story of Shirley, but that's a maybe.) Half of the manga is about Shirley and the rest is of different maids in different homes. As you read you can tell she leaves things unended here and there. Still you can enjoy the early work of Mori and her skill. If you are a fan of Kaoru Mori then you will enjoy this book. If you never read Kaoru Mori then I would suggest reading Emma, her greatest masterpiece.

...comes a series of short stories featuring her favorite topic.. Maids! First, and most prevalent in the book, is young Shirley who is an amazing maid whether it be cooking, cleaning, weeding... and chasing off old biddy aunts. You name it. She comes into the employ of a relatively well-to-do young bar matron who takes to young Shirley in almost no time, giving her gifts and relying on her many skills domestica. The book's chapters are all the early shorts Mori made before working on her main piece, Emma, and each is as light and entertaining, if odd and improbable (a 13-year old master chef, sempstress, etc.?). Two other maids and their respective households show up in later chapters, one a servant to a very young Lord/Master of the House and the other a caretaker to a mischievious old aristocrat who loves laying traps for his servants. I found myself very fond of Nelly... but that might have something to do with a slight glasses fixation. Unlike Emma, all the characters in this period setting are bright and vivid, with no unseemly villains lurking in the shadows keeping rigid control of class and social mores... unless you count the aforementioned aunt who is mildly sour to our barkeep, much to Shirley's dismay. In the author's notes, Mori laments how inexperienced she was when first inking these shorts, and, while it is noticable, doesn't detract much, and is very interesting to read an author's self critique. The chapters are a little rough in story and there a few loose ends, but you can definitely see Mori's great art and style present throughout. Occasionally in manga, often as filler chapters, author's include their prototype submissions (two that come to mind are Berserk's Miura and Kenshin's Watanuki), and you can see the growing pains their stories had... and just how different they could have been. That's sort of what we have here, save for the fact that Shirley and her compatriots are nowhere near Emma's story. Shirley is Emma's prototype in only the barest of notions... a strong girl who became a maid young. The art is typical Mori goodness with finely detailed backgrounds and trappings, and lovely character design. I long for her to put out an artbook one of these days. I recommend a buy for this fun little collection of maid vignettes... with the hope of more to come!