A must for anyone intrigued by the hidden spirit world and how it crosses over into ours.
A couple of foreign travelers search for ghosts and spirits in the countryside of Japan.
According to Japanese legend, onibi are ghost lights, rather like will-o’-the-wisps, and yokai are supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons. Originally written in French, this graphic novel follows two foreign children, Cécile and Olivier (presumably child avatars of the creative duo, Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard, who work together as Atelier Sento), as they travel around Niigata Prefecture. While there, they purchase an old camera that’s purported to capture the yokai on film. Using their camera, they explore this rural area, listening to eerie legends and visiting its haunted places. Unfortunately, the yokai like to play tricks and can sometimes be mischievous and dangerous. Each chapter centers on one of the pictures taken on the trip and tells the story of how it was captured. Overlaid with ghostly illustrations, these photos are real pictures printed using the cyanotype process, which gives them a mysterious blue color. (A three-page minicomic explains the process.) Basing their adventure on real people and places in Japan, the French duo creates a spooky yet intriguing spirit world overlaid on our reality. Using a combination of watercolor and colored pencil, the illustrations are done in a beautiful traditional Japanese style, and the device of the camera in the hands of white tourists is an artful one, given the theme of intersecting worlds.
A must for anyone intrigued by the hidden spirit world and how it crosses over into ours. (maps, glossary) (Graphic fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-4-8053-1496-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A charming adaptation.
A miscommunication leaves Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert responsible for a plucky, effusive orphan girl instead of the boy they’d expected to help maintain their farm.
Retold in traditional manga format, with right-to-left panel orientation and detailed black-and-white linework, this adaptation is delightfully faithful to the source text. Larger panels establish the idyllic country landscape while subtle text boxes identify the setting—Prince Edward Island, Canada, in the 1870s. The book follows redheaded Anne Shirley from her arrival at Green Gables at 11 to her achievement of a college scholarship. In the intervening years, Anne finds stability, friendship, personal growth, and ambition in Avonlea and in the strict but well-intentioned Cuthbert siblings’ household. The familiar story is enhanced by the exciting new format and lush illustrations. A variety of panel layouts provides visual freshness, maintaining reader interest. Backmatter includes the floor plan of the Green Gables house, as well as interior and exterior views, and notes about research on the actual location. A description of the process of adapting the novel to this visual format indicates the care that was taken to highlight particular elements of the story as well as to remain faithful to the smallest details. Readers who find the original text challenging will welcome this as an aid to comprehension and Anne’s existing fans will savor a fresh perspective on their beloved story. All characters appear to be White.
A charming adaptation. (Graphic fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-947808-18-8
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Manga Classics
Review Posted Online: Aug. 18, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Two teenagers fall for each other as a zombifying fungus stalks St. Petersburg, Fla., in this tongue-in-cheek romance. Paired up in school as an egg’s assigned “parents,” shy übernerd Jack Chen and irrepressible baseball star Dicey Bell feel a mutual draw—which is why they’re together, cutting class one day, when a sudden outbreak of mutant fungus turns nearly everyone into mindless, half-decayed killers. Though Dicey’s skill with a bat comes in handy for cranking up the body count, escape becomes an urgent priority when Jack is bitten. His scientist parents have a possible cure—but can they and the young fugitives hook up in time? Though so slow to get off the mark that the zombie action doesn’t even start until halfway through, the plot accelerates nicely thereafter, culminating in a wild drive in a tinkling ice-cream truck through crowds of slavering attackers. So vivacious are Jack and Dicey in Görrissen’s black-and-white art that readers will forgive the indistinct depictions of violence and the untidy way dialogue balloons spill over into adjacent panels. Simultaneously published with volume two, a tale with a different cast and setting titled Made for Each Other, written by Paul D. Storrie and illustrated by Eldon Cowgur. A hoot from opening salvo (“JACK CHEN, YOU’RE THE FATHER OF MY BABY!”) to closing clinch. (Graphic novel. 11-13)
Pub Date: April 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7613-6004-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
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