Itsuwaribito 2

Yuuki Iinuma – Viz – 2011 – 8+ volumes

This series is aiming to please me. Its violence and morals far surpass anything you’d find in the average shounen series, but the artwork, types of characters, mascots, and much of the story resembles the genre essentials.

Within the first few pages of this volume, a corpse-looking individual corners a man, accuses him of being a liar, then kills him with an arrow. The arrow is shot into his mouth and exits through the back of his head and sticks into a tree behind the man. His tongue is pinned to the tree with the arrow, having been skewered, torn out, and driven through his head with the arrow as it went through and through. The corpse man took out his tongue because he was a liar, you see.

This sounds way more gory than it actually is (there’s very little blood), but this approaches Berserk levels of demented violence. Later, we find out that the corpse man keeps a pit of corpses whose tongues he’s removed, and that his face was torn off when he tried to escape from a well as a kid. There’s all sorts of wrong with this story. I really should emphasize it’s not really that gory, but it’s the idea of what’s going on that really impressed me. It’s the type of cartoon violence that is completely cool with most parents because it’s so far removed from reality, so it can go as crazy as it wants.

Anyway. After a one-chapter resolution to the story at the end of the last volume, we find out that the doctor, Yakuma, is probably along for the ride as his path crosses with Utsuho and Pochi and the three wind up traveling together briefly. Yakuma doesn’t trust Utsuho, a liar and self-proclaimed Itsuwaribito (professional liar), but his mistrust lands him in a situation with the aforementioned corpse-man, who stops everyone who passes through his neck of the woods and accuses them of being a liar. Yakuma is forced to trust Utsuho to do the right thing as Utsuho matches wits with the extremely violent corpse-man while Yakuma is impaled on a bed of spikes.

While so much of what’s going on is absolutely standard shounen fare (everything aside from the radical violence and the fact that the hero’s profession is lying, a surprisingly dark vocation for any hero), these first two volumes are worth reading for these Utsuho fights alone. They aren’t physical battles, more of a match-up of wits as Utsuho alternately lies and tells the truth about various small traps he sets. Seeing him work his silver tongue is something to behold, and I was sad to see that the second story arc in this volume stretches out a little longer, putting off the satisfying climax ’til volume three.

That’s not to say that Utsuho isn’t putting his lying skills to work throughout the second story in this volume. Yakuma and Utsuho decide to travel to a mythical island where society banishes convicted criminals and Itsuwaribito, an island that is also rumored to contain a medicine that makes men immortal. Once there, Utsuho crosses paths with many fine liars, but the story’s just getting warmed up, and it looks like most of the payoff will be in the next volume.

I really like what I’ve read so far, and the unique elements make this a worthwhile read. I’m not 100% sold on the entire series (however long that may eventually be), but I do want to read for another 3-4 volumes to see where it goes, and if it keeps improving, I’ll likely be in for the long haul.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.