PART 30 of 52 ONESHOTS in 52 WEEKS
木城 ゆきと×とび ひろたかの『霧界』 “Mukai” by KISHIRO Yukito & TOBI Hirotaka
Yukito Kishiro is the author behind popular cyberpunk manga series Battle Angel Alita, which is known in Japan as Gunnm. The first series began in 1990, with the manga now in its third iteration, sub-titled Mars Chronicle. This newest Alita entry debuted in Evening magazine in October 2014, and was bundled with an unrelated oneshot in which Kishiro collaborated with sci-fi author Hirotaka Tobi, with the duo tackling the artwork and plot respectively.
The oneshot—titled Mukai (which translates to Mist World)—follows two young characters named Kenta and Mika, who are the only people who can move in a seemingly motionless world, where all is frozen in place. What’s more, the environment in this apocalyptic reality has been mashed together as though everything were uprooted and swept along by a great storm, melding cityscapes into a labyrinthine hodgepodge of structures.
The premise is immediately gripping through its budding intrigue and wonder. Kenta and Mika quickly discover that some of the other humans in this strange world are oddly warped and grotesque, and find one such motionless man in the opening pages who is separated into layers, as though—while turning his head—he were paused from the inside out. His brain, eyes, facial muscles and skin are all left behind at different stages of motion, with each layer passing through the other with an uncanny transparent effect. Another man they encounter appears able to move, but only microscopically slow. On the onset, these fascinating concepts are envisaged and illustrated well by the team of Kishiro and Tobi, though sadly this initial intrigue struggles to develop into anything substantial.
The oneshot is a brisk 33 pages and, in that time, the plot touches upon acoustical engineering, a world spreading plague named the ‘Grey Ocean’ and alternate dimensions, with the world split into two distinct realities with differing laws of nature. While these ideas are compelling in essence, they lack considerably in finesse, with the quick pace and deficient development making it difficult to feel truly engaged. The relationship between Kenta and Mika, which is supposed to be the story’s emotional anchor, is half-baked and ultimately, the plot is so contrived that it feels decidedly mechanical, progressing from one thing to the next without any real heart or depth. Increased focus on establishing the two main characters would have been ideal. Moreover, for such a surreal concept, perhaps more ambiguity would have been preferable to the cumber exposition given to the setting. As it stands, Mukai manages the contradictory predicament of being both overwrought and vacant.
Yukito Kishiro’s art style has evolved significantly since his debut. The artist now works with a blend of traditional and digital techniques, with his latter style much more crisp than his rugged earlier work. That said, his earlier work—particularly the first Battle Angel Alita series—has a bonafide energy and character that I personally feel is a little more diluted in his recent manga. Nonetheless, he remains an artist of astounding skill, and brings a flavour of that over to Mukai. The panels of amalgamated scenery are particularly impressive and the involved sci-fi concepts are realised well, however, the artwork does lack in comparison to Kishiro’s serial work. The digital touch is more obvious, with some flat-looking panels and a reliance on tone in place of his impressive sketching. The first chapter of Mars Chronicle, which released at the same time as Mukai, is a much more detailed piece in comparison.
Mukai ends as a very mixed bag, with fascinating notions but a disappointingly broad lack of polish. The core concept of the oneshot—the world devouring ‘Grey Ocean’ which gives rise to the unusual state of the world—is derived from Tobi’s short story Sea Fingers, which debuted several weeks before Mukai on Kodansha’s now defunct online platform moae.jp. It is one of author Tobi’s few works to have received an English translation, and can be found in the Saiensu Fikushon 2016 anthology published by Viz Media. The short story is entrancing and wild in its imagery, and paints a much stronger character portrait than its companion oneshot. Although the characters and setting differ, the two share a familiar premise within the same space. Reading the short story enriches the plot of the oneshot considerably, as it expounds the extraordinary world Tobi has devised through a much more focused and much less ungainly account.
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Morning, Roo 