No Longer Human, Volume 1

~by Usamaru Furuya

Usamaru Furuya's No Longer Human, a manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai's novel of the same name, was one of my most anticipated releases for 2011. The original novel was published in 1948 while the first volume of Furuya's interpretation was released in Japan in 2009. Vertical began bringing the series to English-reading audiences in 2011. (I was hoping that the third and final volume of Furuya's No Longer Human would be published in time for the Usamaru Furuya Manga Movable Feast, but alas, the release date was moved back.) Dazai's novel is a tremendous work and Furuya is a tremendous artist, so I was eagerly awaiting the opportunity to read his version of the story. It's not a strictly literal adaptation--Furuya has moved the story to modern day Japan and has even inserted himself into it.

While searching for inspiration for his next series, manga artist and author Usamaru Furuya stumbles across the online diary of a young man named Yozo Oba. Yozo is the youngest son of a wealthy family. While attending a private high school in Tokyo, he was known as the class clown. Extremely charismatic, he was well liked by his classmates and teachers. What they didn't know was that it was all an act. Yozo views his life as a performance, his actions are deliberate and calculated. The intense and constant effort Yozo puts into convincing others to like and accept him leaves him miserable and unhappy. He has a difficult time connecting with and understanding other people and is afraid that someone will notice his inauthenticity. For now, Yozo just tries to act the part that is expected of him.

Furuya easily slips between and melds two different art style in No Longer Human. One is fairly clean and straightforward, primarily used for dealing with Yozo's interactions with other people. The other style is darker, murkier, and slightly more abstract, reflecting more closely Yozo's inner state of mind and emphasising his sense of separation and detachment. The contrast between the two can be rather disconcerting. Furuya's artwork is extremely effective and he creates some phenomenally chilling moments. The changes that Furuya has made to No Longer Human, which are actually relatively few, also work quite well. Each chapter closes with a direct quote from the novel and important lines--such as the one from the beginning of Yozo's diary, "I've lived a life full of shame."--are incorporated into the manga in very powerful ways.

It is not necessary to have read Dazai's original novel in order to appreciate Furuya's No Longer Human. (Although, if you haven't read the novel before, I do recommend the book.) Furuya's vision is compelling, although I didn't find Yozo to be as sympathetic in the manga. In the novel, Dazai is able to be much more explicit about Yozo's internal conflicts while Furuya relies on his art to express the same things, in some ways leaving more room for readers' individual interpretations. The artwork allows readers to catch glimpses of how Yozo sees things, often without accompanying explanation. The first volume of Furuya's No Longer Human is rather short, but if you rush through it, it is easy to miss some of the subtle cues in the art that add a tremendous amount of depth to both Yozo and to the story. If you can, take time to linger in the darkness.

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Genkaku Picasso, Volume 1

~by Usamaru Furuya

After a seven year drought, Genkaku Picasso became the first in a (very small) flood of new titles by Usamaru Furuya to be translated into English. The first volume of Genkaku Picasso was released in Japan in 2009; the entire series was originally serialized in the manga magazine Jump SQ between 2008 and 2010. The English edition of Genkaku Picasso started publication in 2010. Once again, it was Viz Media that brought Furuya's work to English-reading audiences, having previously published Short Cuts and excerpts from his debut manga, Palepoli. I've had Genkaku Picasso sitting on my shelf for quite some time, but it's only now for the Usamaru Furuya Manga Moveable Feast that I've finally gotten around to reading it. Furuya is well known for his work in underground and alternative manga, but Genkaku Picasso is one of his more mainstream series.

Hikari Hamura, nicknamed Picasso by his classmates (much to his frustration), would much prefer that everyone would just leave him alone to his drawing. However, after a strange accident leaves him with the even stranger ability to visualize the contents of another person's heart, Picasso must learn to use his artistic talents to help others or else he'll rot away. Drawing what he sees, he can dive into the artwork and their subconscious. The problem is that the visions aren't particularly straightforward. That and Picasso doesn't really feel like reaching out to others and is much more comfortable keeping to himself. It's not easy, and there tends to be quite a few misunderstandings, but Picasso doesn't seem to have much of a choice. He might not want to, but he has to get to know his classmates better even if he does find them and the prospect terribly annoying.

One of the things that impresses me the most about Furuya's work as whole is that he deliberately creates a particular aesthetic to fit an individual manga and story. In the case of Genkaku Picasso, Furuya primarily uses two different art styles. The first, representing reality, is a more mainstream, slightly stylized manga style which utilizes screentone and such. The other is based on the approach of pencil sketches and includes hand shading techniques and crosshatching. Used for Picasso's artwork and the characters' subconsciouses, it is also a reflection of Furuya's own fine arts background. I find it interesting that the more realistic style is used to capture the unreal in Genkaku Picasso while the comic style is used to show the ordinary. Granted, even Picasso's "ordinary" is slightly off-balance and surreal, which the artwork helps to show.

I wouldn't exactly say that I was disappointed with the first volume of Genkaku Picasso, but I didn't find it nearly as captivating or compelling as the other works of his that I have read. I really like the premise of the series, but after one volume I haven't been convinced by the manga itself, yet. I feel like it wants to be deep and profound, but the first volume somehow comes across as superficial, even when Picasso is delving into the supposed darkness of other people's hearts. The problems are resolved too quickly and easily. Still, there are plenty of elements in Genkaku Picasso that I enjoy. Although there hasn't been much real development yet, I do like the characters. Picasso and his classmates Sugiura and Akane make an amusing trio (quartet if you count Chiaki). Genkaku Picasso also has a quirky sense of humor that shows up frequently. Picasso's social awkwardness (mostly self-imposed) and bluntness is delightfully endearing. So while I may not have been overwhelmed by the first volume of Genkaku Picasso, it does intrigue me and I do want to continue on with the series.

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Short Cuts, Volume 1

~by Usamaru Furuya

Short Cuts was Usamaru Furuya's first manga to be published by a major magazine, Young Sunday, having previously debuted with his groundbreaking work Palepoli in the underground manga monthly Garo in 1994. Short Cuts also has the honor of being the first of Furuya's works to be made available in English in its entirety as only excerpts of Palepoli have been translated in Japan Edge and Secret Comics Japan. Viz Media published the first volume of Short Cuts in 2002 under the now defunct Pulp imprint. The manga was originally released in Japan in 1998. In addition to the manga, Viz's edition of the first volume of Short Cuts also includes an excellent interview of Furuya conducted in 2000 by one of the editor's he worked with at Garo, Chikao Shiratori, titled "An Interview with Super-Conscious Manga Artist Usamaru Furuya."

Short Cuts is a series of short manga, each only a page or two long, called "cuts." For the most part the cuts are unrelated, although there are a few recurring characters and scenarios as well as running jokes. Occasionally a set of cuts join to form a brief story, but these are generally the exception to the rule. Typically even the related cuts each have their own punchline and can be taken separately. The most common, but certainly not the only, subjects focused on in Short Cuts are kogals, defined at the beginning of the manga as Japanese high-school girls with attitude, and those who obsess and lust over them. Kogal is a fashion statement and a subculture that was prominent in Japan in the 1990s. The phenomenon reached the height of its popularity around the same time that Furuya was creating Short Cuts.

Even though Short Cuts is more commercial than Furuya's previous work, his alternative manga sensibilities are still readily apparent. Absurdity abounds. Short Cuts has a lighter feel to it overall than what I have read of Palepoli, but the humor is still fairly dark. Every once in a while it can come across as a little cruel as Furuya makes heavy use of stereotypes in the manga. However, while he may make fun of kogals, he also makes fun of those who fetishize them, and even pokes fun at himself and other mangaka and media personalities. Quite often, the various groups in Short Cuts get to make digs at each other, too, so I think it all works out. Another aspect of Short Cuts that reflects its alternative origins is Furuya's artwork, which is constantly changing to suit the gags. Furuya displays an impressive range of art styles, sometimes using several within a single cut. His kogals, however, are always quite lovely.

I am glad that I waited until the Usamaru Furuya Manga Moveable Feast to finally get around to reading Short Cuts; I benefited from having read a lot of manga and don't think I would have been able to appreciate Short Cuts as much without that experience. The reason for this is that Furuya doesn't limit himself to kogals, he also parodies and references other manga and Japanese pop culture. Much, but not all, of the humor is culturally dependent, and so at least a basic understanding of Japanese society is useful. There are plenty of translation notes to help the reader along, though. Personally, I found Short Cuts to be consistently funny and frequently hilarious. It can be vulgar and crass at times, but it can also be quite clever and smart. It's not just that Short Cuts is terribly amusing, Furuya is also making legitimate social commentary through satire and black humor.

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Lychee Light Club

~by Usamaru Furuya

While Lychee Light Club is not the first Usamaru Furuya manga to be made available in English it is the first of his works that I have had the opportunity to read. I became interested in the title when Vertical first licensed it but it was the stunning cover that completely sold me, even before I knew what I was really getting myself into. Lychee Light Club, originally published in Japan in 2006, is based on a 1985 Tokyo Grand Guignol play of the same name. Knowing this origination is enough to expect the story to be of a dramatic, horrifying, sensational, and probably bloody nature. Apparently, and interestingly enough, Furuya's version of Lychee Light Club has been adapted back into a stage play. Furuya has also written a prequel called Our Light Club. I really hope that Vertical, which published Lychee Light Club in 2011, will be able to license the prequel as well.

In an abandoned factory in the run-down industrial town of Keikoh meets a group of nine junior high students from an all boys school who call themselves the Light Club. They gather in secret to build a living machine fueled by lychee fruit to carry out their plan to abduct beautiful girls. The intensely charismatic and terrifying Zera, who holds the most power and control over the group, is obsessed with obtaining the ideal of eternal youth and beauty. The Light Club intends to literally idolize the captured girls. But after Lychee's completion and eventual success, things quickly fall apart as the Light Club is utterly consumed by paranoia and jealousy. Violence erupts as the boys are turned against one another, incited by Zera's increasingly pronounced mania. Lychee, the machine meant to make the Light Club invincible, instead brings about their downfall.

Lychee Light Club is a dark tale and the art is appropriately dark as well with plenty use of black. At the same time, Furuya's artwork is also disconcertingly beautiful and stylish. Even the very graphic depictions of blood and gore, of which there are plenty, are strangely seductive. It certainly isn't something that everyone will be able to appreciate and Furuya is not at all subtle about it. Another interesting approach used in Lychee Light Club's artwork has to do with the panels shown from Lychee's perspective. When the machine is first initialized, it can only see in strict black and white; only after it has been programmed with the concept "I am human" can it begin to perceive different shades of grey. It is a symbolic and significant change that has serious consequences.

Ultimately, I was enthralled by Lychee Light Club in all its disturbing glory. Granted, it's not a manga that I would recommend to just anyone; but for an audience prepared for uninhibited violence with highly sexually charged connotations, I wouldn't hesitate. The theatrical influence of Lychee Light Club is readily clear. For one, almost the entire story takes place in a single room. In addition to this, the staging of various scenes and the characters' placements in them are reminiscent of a stage production. To some extent because of this, the Light Club seems to out of context with the rest of their world. Instead of rebelling against a specific society, it feels as though the boys are struggling with and fighting against vague concepts. The story is admittedly strange and incredibly perverse, but neither does it claim to be anything else. Lychee Light Club is horrifying, and it should be.

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