Just when I thought I would have no new Type-Moon manga to talk about I found the first 2 chapters of Tsuki no Sango. Tsuki no Sango is an interesting little project that had Saizensen pair together Kinoko Nasu and Maaya Sakamoto for a short story. It started as Sakamoto reading the story while animation was played in the background. It was popular enough that it has been spun off into several different mediums.
But as a Type-Moon fan I enjoy getting all the Nasu I can. Therefore it is a real boon when a story like this is converted into manga form as that is far easier to see translated than something that usually gets overlooked like drama CDs. (It is not like I’m tripping over Starlit Marmalade translations.) This was drawn by Sasaki Shonen who also did the Shingetsutan Tsukihime manga.
Kinoko Nasu is clearly no stranger to using The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter as in inspiration for stories. Tsukihime means Moon Princess although Arcueid is a much looser adaptation of Kaguya-hime. And in that vein Tsuki no Sango in set in the year 3000 where a princess descended from lunar inhabitants lives on an island on the now stagnating Earth. The Prince of Arishima wishes to make this Storyteller Girl his bride but so far she has asked impossible dowries for her hand in marriage from all her suitors. What is the tale of the Storyteller Girl that made her how she is today?
So far the Storyteller Girl is the biggest hook to the story. She seem to be a proper princess on the outside but overall she seems a spunky Arcueid complete with short blonde haircut and energetic bursts of activity mixed with contemplative melancholy. She also has twin maids that remind me of another similar pair.
This is a far more subdued story that we are used to seeing from Nasu. So far at least. There are no magical orders steeped in blood soaked conspiracies. It seems more a mixture of character study and love story like Notes rather than something like Fate/Stay Night. And I am perfectly fine with that. Can’t wait to read more of it.
Also have to find out what the deal with Small Person is.
The Wake is a new mini-series from the Vertigo line. I was originally curious because Scott Snyder was writing, but I remained unsure. Then I saw the art by Sean Murphy and Matt Hollingsworth and it totally blew me away. The first issue came out this week.
The story centers around Dr. Archer, a cetologist, who is approached by a government organization looking into some strange phenomenon in the ocean around Alaska. She meets a team already selected who were told various other stories about what they are investigating. The mystery setup is classic. We also get glimpses into the distant future and the ancient past implying this manifestation is long reaching.
The art takes the story to another level. The heavy black lines and stark shadows create the perfect atmosphere for this tense, evil in the deep, mystery. The color choices give it a pulpy feel that I just love.
One thing I’m not crazy about is the cover, it really doesn’t do justice to the interior art and doesn’t pull you in.
The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.
Narutaki’s picks:
Hisui’s picks:
