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
Another fresh and funny outing in a mostly solid satiric series.
Proving that the power of teen love trumps even Heavenly directives, a budding graphic artist hooks up with an ethereally handsome new classmate.
Morning Glory’s miserable life at her clique-heavy high school takes a turn for the better with the arrival of hot, strangely naïve Gabriel DiAngelo. A supposedly chance meeting at the local thrift store escalates into movie dates and breathless snogging. Complications arise with the subsequent appearance of Gabriel’s catty but equally stunning relative Luci DiAngelo, who displays a gift for inciting divisiveness and violence. In the black-and-white art, Morning Glory—dark-skinned and serious-looking in rimless glasses—and Gabriel, with his manga-style features and artfully disheveled blond hair, make a cute couple. In the end, Luci is sent back where she came from. After a climactic revelation (“You had wings!” “Did not.” “Did too! What are you?” “Can’t you guess?”), Gabriel confesses that he’s a Guardian actually sent to help Morning Glory’s friend Julia through some family troubles, freshening up the now-tired guardian-angel-falls-in-love-with-human-ward trope considerably.
Another fresh and funny outing in a mostly solid satiric series. (Graphic paranormal romance. 12-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4677-0732-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
This weak entry in a generally well-founded series puts a high schooler between two hunky guys who turn out to be the same hunky guy.
Hardly has Serena started at her new school in a small Texas town than she hooks up with hulking star quarterback Lance. She also agrees to become a study partner with mostly home-schooled, equally outsized Cameron—on an assignment analyzing (hint, hint) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Soon, she notices that the two are never seen together and, as time goes on, that Lance shuttles between sweet talk and an ugly temper that turns violent at any mention of Cam’s name. The teens in Cella’s black-and-white panels are engagingly distinct of look and personality, but Mayhall takes so long to set up the background and introduce the characters that the actual melodrama, revelations, climactic face-off and tidy resolution are crammed into the last 35 pages. Some chemistry (of the romantic sort), but the suspense is contrived and perfunctory. (Graphic paranormal romance. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7613-8548-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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