 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | TOKYOPOP UK | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | MATSURI AKINO | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | JAPANESE / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 176 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | OT | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 08/08/2006 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 05/02/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | SANDRA SCHOLES |
School boy Fuuto Kamishina transfers to another school in the hope it will be a better one than the last, though he is no ordinary boy, his dreams are filled with sequences of birds flying around him with such nightmarish reality he grows to fear them without really knowing why. Getting to know the other kids seems easy as he can see their auras, and one day outside he is met with a huge bird, phoenix-like, perched on a tree while Sato a fellow student helps him shoo it away.
Fuuto makes his first true friend there, but still wonders why this particular bird comes to him, and eventually starts to talk to him telling him who he really is and that Fuuto is more important than he cares to think. Author of A Pet Shop of Horrors, Matsuri Akino brings readers an all-new manga reading experience based around the mystery of the east, its beauty, history and strangeness. Fuuto kamishina is the sort of unsung hero in this novel who would not be out of place, visually in a more yaoi genre as his beauty is all too evident in the artwork.
There is detail and attention to symbolism in this first volume, and a sense of justice that does not go unnoticed in the story itself. As it is an adventyre in the deepest sense, it would be an idea not to mention any more about the story as there is much to take in for the unsuspecting reader. The reason the huge bird is there, what happens to his new friend Sato, and those he meets later in the story, the more interesting it becomes. The story has a deeper meaning of enjoying and making the most of their life with others, but at the same time being aware that those who die they will meet again in another incarnation. Genju No Seiza can be interpreted as disturbing in places, and happily emotional in others, but as the characters are of Japanese origin, there is more hinted at with the introduction of the Hindu god Garuda in the Indian pantheon that creates a feel of originality in the work that is extremely interesting.
IN SUMMARY:
Genju No Seiza is clearly the best fantasy manga on the market. Mythical, relentless and simply pulsing with action. |
