 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | VIZ MEDIA | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | SHIN MASHIBA | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 184 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | T | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 04/08/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 06/03/2008 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SCOTT CAMPBELL |
Are you afraid your dreams may come true? It’s the end of the Taisho Era in Japan. Mercury lamps exhale steam and cast distorted shadows on the brick buildings around them. Underneath it all, spider webs cling to dusk, and citizens are battered about by an uncaring wind. For those of us who suffer nightmares, help awaits at the Silver Star Tea House, where patrons can order much more than just Darjeeling. Hiruko is a special kind of private investigator. He’s a dream eater, and he’ll rid you of your darkest visions… for a price. Dreams on the menu this volume include a restless soul, a murderous beauty, a woman afraid of falling apart, a grieving lover, an unforgiving son, a suicidal actress and a mysterious voice on the other end of a lonely young man's phone. Nightmare Inspector is a surreal piece of work, but holds a good balance. Though at times t is quite serious and artsy, it manages to uphold a sense of humour and even has some fun here and there. The art is cold and purposeful – it fits perfectly with the mood of this manga. The art is well-drawn and has a really cool way of using contrast between the darkest black and the whitest whites. Either way, it is proficient, and the visuals truly convey the story in a way that makes sense and really adds to it in the right ways. The text is just as thankfully readable – always a good size and nicely bolded. There’s nothing more annoying than having to squint at small, unreadable text! The plot itself is quite interesting because it builds on itself as a whole, but is mostly broken down into separate nights and the dreams/nightmares that Hiruko delves into. It’s an enjoyable format to drop into a number of short, separate stories that are also connected as a whole. It’s rare that manga flows in “true” chapter format, but Nightmare Inspector manages it perfectly. The stories range from heartfelt, to downright creepy. It’s hard to quite stamp a genre on this work – it’s a bit of mystery, and a bit of light horror. It’s nothing too scary – just some chills and general “bump in the night” affair to keep readers guessing. Shin Mashiba, artist and author of Nightmare Inspector, had this to say about the first volume: “I’m very nervous about my first book. When I was drawing this manga I was wondering about how a nightmare might taste exactly. I suppose because you see a dream inside your head, maybe it would taste like brains?” Shin Mashiba’s first Manga, Yumekui Kenbun (Nightmare Inspector), premiered in Monthly Stencile, a shojo magazine, in December 2001 and was serialized in Monthly G Fantasy from 2003 to 2007. Mashiba-san’s own nightmares include being forced to eat 50 living slugs and being chased by time itself.
IN SUMMARY:
Nightmare Inspector shows a lot of promise with this first volume – it has great art and surreal story telling that comes together to form quite an engrossing read. The concept of entering people’s dreams is so interesting – it’s a great subject for a manga. |
