Manga publisher Vertical, Inc. brings manga fans the English language debut of artist Jiro Matsumoto with Velveteen & Mandala, a rough and violent manga of two high school girls fighting zombies. The manga was released in Japan by Ohta Publishing Co. The single volume manga will be released August 30, 2011.
Velveteen is a runaway, living in a tank on the bank of the Suginami river while switching between moments of calm and violent outbursts. It's a place where souls pass through on their way to the other side, but there's a bug in the system - the bodies are passing through, too. It makes matters worse when they get up and walk around with a craving for human flesh. It becomes Velveteen's job, along with her equally unbalanced friend/annoyance/violent enemy Mandala, to get rid of the walking dead. Of course, they could just as easily kill each other first.
Velveteen & Mandala from Ohta Publishing Co. and Vertical, Inc.
The plot of Velveteen & Mandala takes a lot of twists, with chapters jumping back in time without warning, and crucial explanations not coming until past the halfway point in the book. This makes the manga rather frustrating as you try to figure out not only why these mistakenly "forwarded" dead bodies are suddenly walking around, but also what's really going on with our increasingly unstable heroines.
The confusing plot is less of a problem on a reread, when certain symbols and occurrences - like the bugs swarming around Velveteen, and the sudden arrival of so many bodies - make sense. But it's a frustrating task to piece scattered bits of information together, and you still feel like there's something your not being told. It's a relief when some things are directly stated, like the purpose of the insects and Suginami Ward, even if the information comes much too late in the game (3/4 through the book!).
Rough Detailed Art from Jiro Matsumoto
Matsumoto creates texture and shading with cross hatching just as much as with screen tones, giving the manga a rough-hewn feel. An intense amount of detail is put into backgrounds and objects, and the not-quite-clean lines add to the rough atmosphere. Only a few characters are important (Velveteen, Mandala, and the riverside's Super), and they are carefully crafted with distinct looks and expressions that range from mildly bored to utterly psychotic.
The rough art is also incredibly well-suited for the crass, violent story Matsumoto tells. Velveteen not only blasts zombies, but takes a bat to the Super and a gun to her friend, and a particularly gory scene involving a truck is not only well-timed for the shock, but so disturbing in its details that it's hard to look away. And the grungy style make Velveteen and the Super look positively raunchy as they walk around exposing themselves.
Actually managing to be even more disturbing and (occasionally) off-putting than the violence is the horridly vulgar scene that takes place around the halfway mark. Though the back cover actually alerts the reader to this, the full-on shot of Velveteen simultaneously vomiting and having diarrhea. It quickly becomes unnecessarily pornographic as the zombies attack and attempt to rape Velveteen...all while still exhibiting the effects of her food poisoning. With all the violence going on in the story, the shock in this bit is overkill, and in the end it's just plain gross.
Velveteen & Mandala by Jiro Matsumoto
Velveteen & Mandala makes you think, which is never the most terrible thing a story can have you do. But when all that thinking leads mainly to hair-tearing frustration it hardly seems worth the effort. A reread helps all the facts settle in, but those with gentler constitutions will have a rough time even getting through the manga the first time around. Jiro Matsumoto's heroines (if you can call them that) are fascinating to watch as you try to figure out how their deranged minds tick, and though the revelation never happens, we at least see some masterful art - too bad it's just too darn gross.
Velveteen & Mandala gets 2/5.
- ISBN: 9781935654308
- MSRP: $16.96 US / $18.95 CAN
- 344 pages
- Rated 'M' for Mature
- Released August 30, 2011
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