Bride of Deimos
Posted: April 12, 2009 Filed under: Bride of Deimos 10 Comments »I did a huge series write-up for Bride of Deimos for the Manga Recon this weekend, and I would be tickled if you read it. It’s a great series, and the reviews I wrote for it here don’t do it any justice.
I didn’t post anything yesterday because I was re-reading all my volumes of this series, and it got me really fired up about it again. I like horror manga, and I like 70s shoujo manga, and this is both. Bonus points for involving demonic themes, which I have a hard time resisting (see also: D. Gray-Man, Nora). Deimos, the main character/antagonist, is also hard to dislike. It’s sort of an unknown series in English, I think, and it’s worth checking out since the volumes can be had so cheaply.
I can’t comment on Manga Recon because I don’t have an account. Anyway, I agree about Deimos being the good part. Though I wonder why he loves Minako so much … is she that much like Venus?
You know, I had thought that he was “in love” with her because she looked just like Venus and he had been planning on grabbing her body and putting the soul of Venus in it. But the weird thing is that the series doesn’t even mention Venus until the end of volume 1. It kind of coasts along with just he and Minako, and then when Venus is introduced, even in the first chapter Deimos sort of protects Minako from her wrath when she tries to drag her back to Hades to possess her body. Then it goes through and talks about how Deimos has been on this long quest through the years to find the reincarnation of Venus, and Minako was finally her, but… it doesn’t really ever explain what it is that he sees in Minako that’s important enough not to just grab her and trade her in for Venus, who’s been waiting all these years.
I had forgotten about the Venus/Deimos origin chapter, where Deimos looks like a regular toga-clad pretty boy. There’s also a good chapter where Venus puts Minako in her body in order to live out part of the past in Greece, and other chapters that are almost Mermaid Saga-like, with just Deimos wandering around and encountering stuff by himself in the in-between years.
i found volume one at my bargain bookstore, i didn’t ever read the description, i just saw the cover art and i knew it was old and i just had to have it! i’ve thought about tracking the rest of it down…but there are so many series i want to do that with…its just not high on the list. it did scare me though, while still maintaining my interest, i went to borders afterwords and tried to find some scary shojo and was not impressed with what they had to offer, comparatively.
Bride of Deimos will probably always be floating around out there used because it’s just not that popular, so you won’t have to worry about not picking it up right away. To be fair, it’s not really something that will grab a lot of people enough to make them rush out and buy all that’s out there. I’m glad you liked it, though.
Scary shoujo in English is hard to come by. Aside from the more obvious crop of newer Viz titles (Heaven’s Will, maybe Nightmare Inspector), some of what’s available is older stuff. Reptilia is textbook 60s shoujo horror, and is written by horror manga master Kazuo Umezu, but it really shows its age. Dokebi Bride is a really great Korean series that is a lot like Bride of Deimos, where a girl sees ghosts and mythological creatures and stuff, but it’s more creepy and atmospheric than it is scary. Mermaid Saga is also along the same lines, though technically speaking it’s shounen. It’s a lot more action-oriented and violent than either Bride of Deimos or Dokebi Bride, but it’s still got the atmosphere and tragic mood that those two have.
Presents and Mantis Woman are more over-the-top splatter horror, but both are good in their way. Presents is also kind of gross, but its second volume is one of the most unsettling horror manga I can think of. Mantis Woman is kind of silly, and may also be technically shounen, but it’s a one-shot and kind of a curiosity in its weirdness. Hideshi Hino has also done some shoujo horror, but it’s not quite as good as some of his other series. He would also fall into the over-the-top splatter category, and is probably not something you’re looking for, but Ghost School and Death’s Reflection are both technically shoujo (and kind of bad, honestly) and Mystique Mandala of Hell might be shoujo and might not, but it is at least better than the two volumes that are.
For mood and atmosphere matches, you might try After School Nightmare and Moon Child, neither of which are horror at all (After School Nightmare is weird drama and Moon Child is romance and drama), but you sort of get that feeling from them as you read them. Both of them are really bizarre reads, particularly Moon Child. Evyione: Ocean Fantasy is also a mood/atmosphere match, it’s an excellent retelling of the Little Mermaid with the genders swapped and really pretty art. It’s got more of the tragic flavor to it than horror though, and only the first volume is out.
You might try a few of Mitsukazu Mihara’s titles (Haunted House springs to mind because of the title, but I’ve never read that one), but hers are more gothic and moody than they are horror, and recommending them as horror sort of pushes the definition. Embalmer and IC in a Sunflower are both good (the latter is a short story collection), and R.I.P. is also silly as much as it is gothic and moody. Blank Slate is shoujo action, but has an unhinged mass murder for a main character, so there’s lots of standoffs and stuff like that. It’s only an okay series, though.
And… this was a lot longer than I meant for it to be. Oh well.
hey thanks for the recommendations! i do have blank slate and i liked it well enough…i’ve been meaning to get into moon child for a while now…i bought my friend afterschool nightmare several volumes….so really i could read that anytime, but i’ll look into those titles, thanks for writing so much,really!
Oh, no problem! I love shoujo horror when it’s well done, so it was kind of fun to think of the ones I liked best.
Good review I also loved Bride of Deimos and it irked me taht there was no conclusion even in the Japanese takubons. By any chance do you know what the new one that came in 2007 is about?
As far as I can tell, it seems to focus on girls that are being directly or indirectly influenced by Deimos? The short story format is gone, but in the volume and odd chapters that have been published, I think two different storylines have taken place, one about a figure skater and the other about a different girl. I would need to look at it again, but if I remember right, I think Deimos offers a solution to the girls’ problems at the beginnings of their stories and then appears to foreshadow evil, but doesn’t really interact with them directly, or say much, or do much. They are kind of lame, and it’s been awhile since I read the first volume. I should re-read it, I’ve been studying Japanese a bit more lately and I could probably figure out more of what was going on. If I can get a better summary, I’ll post it here.
Thank you it would be great if you posted a summary here. Do you think that some one may translate and scalate it?
Hopefully we will get a resolution to the story. I’d hate it if they leave it open again. Some of my friends joked that Deimos would say to Venus and Minako “Screw it, I won’t pick any of you. I’m gay”
I might do a summary of it in the future as part of a new column I was thinking of, actually, but I think I may try and wait until the second volume comes out, which should be any time now. Honestly, I would be surprised to see a scanslation pop up, because the new series just isn’t very good and it’s kind of obscure (I don’t know that any of the series from the magazine it runs in are being scanslated at the moment). The story is coming out slowly but surely, so I hope that the writer decides on a resolution this time – I would hate to see them bring it back after 20 years only to leave it open-ended again.