Slightly Biased Manga

This series is awesome in the same way that Trigun is awesome.  Both have excellent artwork (major bonus points for the color pages in the front of volume 2 here), both have really great-sounding plots, and both are nearly incomprehensible when you get down to the nitty-gritty of the plot.

I mean, I know that the main character’s husband changes into a different person at night, and that the main character has fallen in love with this person despite herself, and there’s a lot of drama and intrigue surrounding that… the character who also loves the water god, the water god’s mother, the fact the water god may still love his former human bride, the fact that the main character may find out that Mui and her husband are the same person… stuff like that, and I think if things solidify and really get going, it’ll be awesome.  As it is, there’s a lot of characters wandering around that I sometimes have trouble remembering and keeping straight (the two male side characters in particular, I can’t really remember who they are and they pop in every once in awhile), the sense of place isn’t very good, and the sense of time is also a little skewed.  But it’s so pretty it’s hard for me to begrudge it these things.

I’m definitely picking up volume three, if only because I desperately want things to hop on track.  Plus, yes. great art.

I fell asleep no less than 5 times while trying to read this.  It was like trying to get through Astro Boy.  Some things will just make me drop into comas while I read them.

It wasn’t actually as bad as that makes it sound, but it certainly wasn’t action-packed either.  It was actually quite lovely as well as quiet and understated, which made it not a good read for when I was tired.  The plot was sort of familiar without being immediately recognizable.  The main character was sacrificed to the Water God by her village, and she finds herself in the land of the Gods, bride to what appears to be a small child.  The main character gets to meet many of the other Gods that inhabit the land, and we find out that the Water God himself transforms into an adult at night.  The bride doesn’t know this, and while she finds the daytime Water God somewhat inapproachable, she seems drawn to the nighttime version, who she thinks is a different person.

The problem I have with this series right now is that it’s a little too quiet.  There’s a lot of characters floating around with not very much explanation, and the reader is also left somewhat in the dark about most of the emotions of the Bride and the Water God.  There are snatches of back story which shed light on certain things, but emotions are never overtly stated.  I kind of like the fact that it’s left up to the audience’s interpretation since it’s usually the sort of thing you’re beat over the head with, but I would like to have more to work with.

There’s some direction in the plot by the end of the volume, and we’re set to find out why the Water God transforms and who some of his other brides were.  Despite the lack of definition in this volume, I liked it tremendously and I’m really looking forward to the next volume.