Swan 14
June 22, 2009
While I favor From Eroica With Love more, the 10-month gap between this volume and the one before it is more keenly felt in Swan, which is a very serious story with an ongoing plot. I had a hard time recalling who the characters were and what was going on (aside from a general “Masumi is having trouble with modern ballet” sense), but I got the hang of it after about 30 or so pages. I’ll probably start from the beginning and re-read the series before volume 15 comes out just because it’s a gorgeous series and really deserves my full attention with each volume.
The benefit to the release gap is that I totally forgot just how breathtaking amazing this series can be, and the volume may have made more of an impact because of it. To be fair, the volume opens with jaw-dropping incredible composition that goes on for the first several pages, which was the luck of the draw, but what a way to be grabbed by the series again.
So, yeah, Masumi is having problems with modern ballet, and the problems come to a head here when the coreographer she is studying under tells her she will have to audition for her lead role with Leonhardt against Margie, a modern ballet prodigy. I had mostly forgotten about the trinity of Leo, Luci, and Ed, the three friends of modern ballet. Luci plays the most prominent role in this volume aside from Masumi, and provides her with emotional support that Leonhardt seems unable to give.
Luci does two things that make Swan better than any other manga. The first is that he explains to Masumi that a partnership between dancers is better if you fall in love with your partner, male or female. He explains that he loves each of his partners, and that modern ballet is all about sexual attraction and human sensuality, something that classic ballet hides under costumes. The way he explains it was pretty erotic, in an unattached way, and I’m not going to do the conversation any justice if I explain it more than that.
The second thing he does is dance Bolero. I nearly teared up during this sequence, because not only is it beautiful art-wise, but the emotional impact generated between the art and the selected text, describing the dance itself and its effect on Masumi, it… it makes you really feel like you are witnessing something special. Luci starts by explaining a famous performance of Bolero, and how it would be performed on a dark stage with a single male dancer on a round table with a dozen female dancers keeping the rhythm around him. He describes specific body movements at the beginning of the song. And then he performs it, in a dark and decrepit studio at the top of a building in New York. Masumi’s reactions describe his body movements, the rhythm of the song, and the incredible effect that even his sweating lends to the dance.
There is no action scene that compares to it.
And that’s why Swan is the best manga ever. The end.
June 22, 2009 at 4:34 am
dude! i totally had no idea who the long blonde haired guy was! and his friend, and the masumi’s friend who was th elong blonde haired guy’s friend. i just got used to them as it progressed like you did. it was way too long of a break!
June 22, 2009 at 8:39 am
Yes. All of that!
June 23, 2009 at 2:47 am
Yeah, it was Luci that had me scratching my head through the early parts. I had absolutely no recollection of him at all until I started to wrack my brain for the connection between him and Ed, another character that was totally faceless at the beginning of the volume. And honestly, it also took me awhile to recognize who Leonhardt was too, I completely forgot what he looked like. The next volume looks like it’ll be coming out in November, and a 6-month wait is still long, but I’ll take it if the alternatives are ten months, or a year, or never.
June 24, 2009 at 7:36 am
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