As of late, I’ve been grossly swept away into the world of After School Nightmare. lets just get this in to the clearing: it’s probably one of the best shoujo I’ve ever read. So what’s the story about? Ichijou Mashiro has a problem. His upper half is male, but his lower half is female. He has been recruited into an after school class where he is put into a dream to fight other dreamers in search for a key. Every individual that is put in the after school class seems to be dealing with a problem. For example, Kureha was raped as a child, and had an abusive father, therefore, in her dream, she hates men to death. Mashiro, on the other hand is torn between what gender he or she is.

His upper half is loves Kureha, who is a girl. On the other hand, because of his bottom half, he finds himself slowing getting attracted to Sou, who he thinks could be one of the students in the after school class. I can sympathize with Mashiro because he is torn between two different people within himself. Is he a boy? or is he a girl? He has always insisted that he’s a boy. But when he gets his period and other girly stuff, his manlihood is waivering.  Sou isn’t helping either. His disgust for Sou’s action caused him to think about Sou even more. Especially when Sou tells him he loves him.

Volume One: The first volume to After School Nightmare volume 1, was simply fantastic. In one short volume, Mizushiro-Sensei pulls her readers into the world of the dream. All characters are introduced and each and every one of them has a problem of his or her own. Mashiro has even a problem in the dream world. His real self is shown in the dream world, whereas, everyone else has their own persona in the dream. Mashiro quickly recognized Kureha, after seeing her past within the dream. After realizing the reason behind her hatred of men, Mashiro vows to protect and help Kureha get over her hatred for men.

We are also introduced to the Knight, who’s identity is unknown. In his second after school class, Mashiro was humiliated by the Knight, who question his gender. The Knight and the rest of the students in the dream finds out about Mashiro’s gender. Mashiro who is now full of anger because he was humilated in the dream, sets out to try to find the identity of the Knight. Mashiro suspects Sou of being the Knight because he always calling Mashiro a women in real life.

Volume Two: In the second volume, we get to learn more about the other students within the dream. It becomes more clear the reason why the dream world exist. In order for a student to graduate from school, and the dream, he must find the key, which happens to always lay within another person’s body. Some students are more focused on just graduating. So they attack other students in order to find the key. Some have other purposes in staying in the dream. As of now, their purposes aren’t clear.

Kureha and Mashiro relationship progressed some more this volume. Mashiro continues to protect Kureha within the dream, which causes Kureha’s feelings to deepen for Mashiro. On the other end of the spectrum, Mashiro still continues to be capitivated by Sou, even though he is still disgusted by Sou’s actions towards him. Kureha confronts Sou, but he refuses to tell her what she wants to know about his relationship with Mashiro. This causes Kureha to feel unstable with her relationship.

There’s also something fishy about Sou’s relationship with his sister, it almost seems incestrous. She may also be one of the students in the dream world.

During a chat with Midori, Mashiro learned that he must be agressive and use imagination in order to survive in the dream world. While fighting with the Knight, he ended up imagining a pair of twin blades, which he used to defeat the knight. Because of the fight, Midori ends up finding the key and graduating.

There is something strange about this whole “graduating” business. After Midori graduated, her existence seem to disappear as well. Mashiro finds it odd that someone is missing, but he can’t seem to remember who it is. He starts to get suspicious. During a spat with Sou in the locker room, he asked Sou, “Do you remember any of these people who used these locker rooms?”

Volume Three: We are introduced to a new character this volume. In the dream world, he’s a paper giraffe, but in the real world, he’s a genius who can’t relate with the people around him. He has a special power within the dream world. He can tell each student’s real life identity. He uses this to blackmail Mashiro into protecting him in the dream world. He promises to tell Mashiro, the Knight’s identity. He later on graduated from the dream world. We get a glimpse to where he goes after they graduate. It doesn’t seem like a good place, in my opinion.

Kureha continues to question her relationship with Mashiro. Mashiro tries to help her meet new guy friends such as Shinbashi (who is quite suspicous, in my opinion), but Kureha misunderstands, and continue to be upset at Mashiro. Meanwhile, Mashiro is more focused on Sou, then he is on fixing his issues with Kureha. Shinbashi questions his motives, and Mashiro realizes that he hasn’t been trying to fix things with Kureha, even though he really care for her . He also realize that he has some feelings for Sou.

There has been a recurring scene where a black moon appears in the sky, but only some students can see it. This may play a big part in the story, but as of now, we know nothing about it. It’s also supicious that the moon appears when a student is about to graduate. This has obviously peak my curiousity, so I’m dying to know what this “black moon” signifies.

Art: I got to say that the artwork in After School Nightmare is quite an improvement from her past series. A while back I read Mizushiro-Sensei’s Maison de Beauties and the artwork in those volumes weren’t that great. Characters who are suppose to be beautiful, I find ugly. But in After School Nightmare, her art is greatly improving. Especially, the covers are drawn quite nicely. I also like the use of blank spaces to protray certain emotions.

Final Thoughts: What I like most about this series, is that it’s different. I’ve never read a story about a hermapodite before. So this series is really refreshing in a sense.  The character development is always quite something. Each volume we get to see characters come closer to their goals of fixing their souls. I am definitely hooked on reading this series, in order to find out more about each character’s motives.

Overall Grade: A+

{insert exciting intro blurb here}

I tried to write an intro for this, but no matter what, it was crappy and clunky, so I’ll just dive right in. One final word, though: I will readily admit that this list does have a Western tilt (specifically for English and American works), but, in my defense, this is a bit inescapable, as there is much, much more English-language literature available to me as an American than translated works from other cultures.

In no particular order:

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I have to be honest – the only way I’d want to see this would be if I could wholesale kidnap the entire group that worked on Gankutsuou – The Count of Monte Cristo, and then convince all of them to work on this. What could go wrong? Here you have a naive young man, his older hedonistic friend, and a besotted artist, all orbiting around an apparently black magic picture and the slow-boil corruption of the young man. Oh, yeah, and a symbolic deal with the devil, as that magical portrait keeps the young man, Dorian, from ever aging, as his morals steadily rot through the passage of time. There’s plenty of material here for a full-season effort, as we have a classic moral conflict on agonizing display.

Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome is one of my favorite books. It succinctly tells the tale of a tragedy, the suffocating existence of Ethan Frome, a man who has built himself a birdcage out of his own beliefs about duty. I would describe it as both stark and beautiful. What I would find interesting would be a Japanese take on the thing, even to the point of wanting to see it set in historic Japan, as Ethan’s notions of loyalty to family has strong similarities to feudal Japanese loyalty systems. In the hands of a good director, this could be an extremely good OVA.

After School Nightmare

After School Nightmare is one of the few works I compare favorably with Revolutionary Girl Utena. ASN covers similar ground to Utena – gender issues, adolescence, the meaning of adulthood, sexuality… and it also does it in a manner that is fraught with symbolism and far from straightforward. I would love to see this get an anime adaptation, preferably with Kunihiko Ikuhara (who helmed RGU) in charge of things, and working with J.C. Staff, which was the studio which brought us RGU. J.C Staff did try to replicate RGU’s brilliance with Melody of Oblivion, which fell flat through a combination of gratuitous fanservice and poor charaterization (not to mention having a crap ending), but with Ikuhara in charge, this could be this decade’s RGU. Of course, the likelihood of all that occuring is on par with all the planets aligning, so I’m not exactly holding my breath.

The Charioteer

For better or worse, The Charioteer kind of comes off as one of those delicate BL light novels which don’t contain sex… insofar as the romance aspect goes. This has a lot to do with its age, though, as it hails from the 1950’s; it was fairly groundbreaking for its time, featuring homosexual relationships as its primary plotline (although it does also deal quite a bit with World War II and its affect on soldiers). Perfect for people who enjoy the excurciating smolder approach to romance.

Kafka on the Shore

Kafka on the Shore, like most of Haruki Murakami’s works, is bizarre. It stars the apparently Oedipally-cursed Kafka Tamura, and the mentally handicapped cat-whisperer Nakata, in two storylines which eventually converge. It also takes place both in the everyday realm of being and on a metaphysical level. This is one of those books that you endlessly speculate about and attempt to work out, but never quite do, something I am sure was intentional on the part of Murakami. If I could pick, I’d tap Shoji Kawamori, who directed the beautiful Spring and Chaos (Kenji no Haru) to lead the way, as he masterfully delivered a surreal biopic of Kenji Miyazawa with that effort that displays his ability to blend reality with the metaphysical.

I will admit that maybe my primary desire for an anime adaptation of this, though, is the chance to actually get the song ‘Kafka on the Shore’ to be produced.

Hamlet

It would’ve been nice if Gonzo had done an adaptation of Hamlet instead of Romeo and Juliet, as Hamlet is both a vastly superior play to R+J, and isn’t regularly abused in pop culture for the benefit of the young and foolish. It is difficult for me to form an exact argument for the notion that Hamlet deserves an anime adaptation because it is a play which the vast majority of educated people are familiar with; as such, in making an argument I’d just be saying things about Hamlet that you’ve already heard a million times before. Anyway, Hamlet has been adapted in Japan before, by the great Akira Kurosawa, who directed a very loose adaptation entitled ‘The Bad Sleep Well’. I’m curious to see what an anime director would do with it, though, and would enjoy seeing something that is more faithful to the original.

The Sea of Fertility

The Sea of Fertility is the tetraology that was comprised of Yukio Mishima’s final four novels, starting with Spring Snow and concluding in The Decay of the Angel. I must confess that a small part of me can’t help but wonder if the original person who came up with the bare-bones from which the AIR visual novel was sprung was influenced by The Sea of Fertility. The storyline follows Honda, who begins as a law student, as he tries to save people he believes to be successive incarnations of a former classmate from untimely deaths. As such a statement implies, he tends to fail at this, since he can’t counter fate. I’d pick Ryosuke Nakamura and Sadayuki Murai to direct and write the screenplay for this, respectively, as their work on Mouryou no Hako was nothing short of impressive. But here I think a long movie would be the preferable approach (I actually think Mouryou no Hako may’ve worked better as a movie, since there would’ve been less of an opportunity to forget the fine details that are so important to the plot).

Galapagos

Galapagos is black humor at its finest – the central premise of the novel is that humanity made its first mistake when it crawled out of the water all those millions of years ago to become a land-dwelling creature. In it, a random group of people get shipwrecked in the Galapagos as the remainder of the world undergoes armageddon. So, everyone in the world is dead except for our characters. And it just gets cheerier from there! Vonnegut’s most cynical work. I’d put this in the hands of whoever was primarily responsible for episode eight of Paranoia Agent – y’know, the one where the three people are trying to commit suicide during the entire thing and keep failing? That one.

]]> http://onegaiblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/after-school-nightmare/ Sat, 27 Jun 2009 07:51:26 +0000 onegaiblog http://onegaiblog.wordpress.com/2009/06/27/after-school-nightmare/

ASN Vol1 Cover

Genres: Thriller, Drama, Horror

Japanese Title: Houka go Hokenshitsu

Author(s): Art & Story by Setona Mizushiro

Synopsis:

Ichijo Mashiro is a student at Kokoku High living a typical high school boy’s life – at least on the outside. You see Mashiro has an astonishing secret; he’s half female! If dealing with his own personal problems isn’t complication enough, Mashiro is thrown into a world of chaos and illusions when he is invited to join a special after school class in a section of Kokoku High that he’s sure was never there before. This is no ordinary class either. Here students all go to sleep to participate in a shared dream where they appear in their hearts’ truest forms which range from the bizarre to the horrific, competing against each other in order to obtain a key that will allow them to “graduate”.

Review:

One of the most interesting, gripping and original stories I’ve read in a long time; After School Nightmare will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first volume. It’s extremely atmospherically charged, often toying with the reader’s own sense of reality. The character development is first-class; allowing you to get to know all the characters thoroughly as the story unfolds. Dominated by an eerie feeling of loneliness and isolation and filled with suspense, romance, action and tragedy; it’s one of those things you just can’t help but resent being pulled away from, even if it’s 3am on a school or work night.

Additional Information:

More Information on Setona Mizushiro and a full list of works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setona_Mizushiro

This is one heck of an epic manga! Seriously, once you start, you can’t stop reading till you see it to the end.

In the beginning, you might find the story a bit confusing what with the whole dreamland thing but by the end of the story I finally understood what the story is all about.

From Baka-Updates:

From Go! Comi:
Like most teenagers, Mashiro Ichijo has a secret. But Mashiro’s secret is that he’s neither fully male nor female! So far, Mashiro’s been able to live his life as a boy, but all this changes when he’s informed of a new class he must take in order to graduate from his elite prep school. To pass, he must find the “Key”…and the only way to find it is to enter into a nightmare world where his body and soul are put at the mercy of the worst kind of enemies: his classmates!

This is no high school, my dear boy (or girl). You’ll know why when you read the ending.

—————————————————–
Spoiler ahead. Read at your own risk!
—————————————————–

As said in the series synopsis, Mashiro is neither male nor a female. More like he can go both ways but ultimately he has to choose one. In my point of view as a reader I feel that Mashiro somehow tries very hard to be manly and even dated a girl (Kureha) which I think is just his effort to be manly.

Mashiro isn’t the only one with a dark secret. Kureha herself has a dark past which she’s trying to escape from. She was raped as a child and the worst part of all is her parents doesn’t seem to show concern at all. This certainly explains why she hated men but for some reason, she fell for Mashiro (probably due to Mashiro not a 100% male).

For some reason, Sou sees Mashiro as a female and tried to get Mashiro to love him and he is not one without any dark past either. As a child, he witnessed his parents’ separation and as a result of it, he was to stay with his mother and his sister Ai, with their father. This siblings has some serious issue to overcome. To think that Sou had his “first time” with his sister…way twisted.

These three formed some sort of love triangle. Mashiro started to go out with Kureha and Sou is relentless in getting Mashiro to love him. Kureha on the other hand became insecure and disdainful towards Sou who kept coming on to Mashiro even though Mashiro is officially dating Kureha. One thing led to another and somehow Sou grew tired of this love game and gave up and after quite some time, Kureha broke it off with Mashiro. For the obvious reasons, Kureha and Sou started to get along just fine leading Mashiro to believe that they are actually dating. While having that sort of thought he felt a stabbing jealousy (which proves that he is indeed in love with Sou).

By the end of the story, it is revealed that the high school where the dream took place is actually the backdrop of a maternity ward of a hospital. As the students graduated, they are reborn again to this world. While in that high school, it is implied that they are neither living nor dead. In the final chapter of the series, we see that the high school infirmary room has started to collapse simultaneously with a maternity ward in the real world and as such, it is implied that the remaining students can now no longer “graduate” or “reborn” to the real world. However, with the strength of the remaining students (Sou, Kureha and several others), Mashiro made it…he is now reborn as a girl* to a couple. And oh, I almost fail to mention that Sou and Mashiro were going out (yay!). All that aside, in the final scene of this manga, we see that Mashiro and Sou meet again in the real world in the train.

*There are two souls residing in Mashiro’s body – a female and a male. The strongest will eliminate the weak and reborn into the real world. In the real world, a couple is expecting twins – a girl and a boy. When it was time for the mother-to-be to deliver, they could only feel one heartbeat instead of two – the baby boy was born dead (presumably the male part of Mashiro) while the baby girl survived.

***

My thoughts:

When I was reading the first few chapters a couple of years back, the fangirl in me kept screaming “go for Sou!!!”. Lol. Those were the days. I couldn’t care less that both of them are guys but of course, that’s not the case since After School Nightmare is a purely shoujo manga and indeed, Mashiro is really a girl in the end.

After School Nightmare is one of the few mangas that I would reread over and over again. It’s gripping and the suspense keeps you going and you will find yourself wanting to see what happens next and how it will end. The plot is not quite the usual one that you might find in most shoujo series, as such, I for one can’t predict how the author will end the story. Coupled with a twisted plotline, you’ll never know what’s going to happen next and this keeps you hooked till the end. A must read!

As of current, I’m following Kuro Bara Alice, Mizushiro Setona’s newest work. Should be as good as this one

***

Notes:

1. Some information is taken from Wikipedia.

2. After School Nightmare is licensed in English by Go! Comi.

Ch-check it out.

EDIT: For some reason all my horizontal pictures have been cut off partially; I’m not going to fix this right now, as I’ve spent about an hour already screwing around with them because WordPress is being cranky, and I just want to go read some dirty BL manga and watch Kite.

So I’ve progressed through the posts which others could potentially have interest in and arrived at the sort of post which may be the most self-centered type that exists in the aniblogosphere: the ‘oo, look at all the stuff I got at the con!’ post.

We’ll start off with the anime portion.

I picked up the Kite boxset at the Media Blasters booth, the Blue Seed collection at the ADV booth, and Utena movie and second collection at some random booth (Central Park Media finally went belly-up ;_; so they didn’t have a booth, obviously). The first volume of X came to me in exchange for the first volume of Shattered Angels (ha! sucker!) at the swap meet Friday. I was personally most excited about the second Utena collection, since it is out of print and pretty expensive usually… but not if you buy it at a con, apparently – I paid $35, whereas the cheapest I’ve found it used online has been about $80.

As for the Kite boxset…

Um, excuse me? Not only is Sawa’s underwear showing, the other girl isn’t wearing any freaking panties.

She also apparently has the anatomy of a Barbie doll.

The covers of the two DVD’s; Kite’s been remastered for this release. I really like the Kite cover; on the back is a similar shot of the male protagonist, who is also crying (I haven’t watched them yet, so I don’t know his name). Getting the two bundled is $25 versus $20 for each separately.

Next up is all the manga I bought.

I had to split this into multiple groups since I got a lot. This one is the non-BL/yaoi set… although After School Nightmare is a little confusing on that point since the protagonist has a male upper body and female lower body, and he gets kissed by a girl and a boy. But I figured I’d leave it in with the non-BL/yaoi pile since I felt like being arbitrary.

I was holding both Voiceful and Yuri Monogatari 5 and trying to decide which to go with… and I picked Voiceful because it was cheaper. Which was a mistake. Whoops.

Duck Prince was a freebie via the swap meet, wherein I got rid of the first volume of Aishiteruze Baby (yeah, yeah, I know its cute…) for it because a one-shot I haven’t read is better than a first volume I’ll never finish the series of regardless of the actual quality of the oneshot. Not pictured is the first volume of Emma, which I bought for my mum ^___^

Next is the not-exactly-BL set. They sort of walk the line, at least from what I’ve read of them. Wild Adapter has some guyxguy stuff, but through three volumes its all one-sided crushes with exactly one kiss so far (which the one being kissed didn’t respond to). The Flat Earth/Exchange supposedly has some BL in it, although I have yet to hit it.

Now we have the English-language BL/yaoi. I actually got three (Barefoot Waltz, Feverish, and Tricky Prince) of them outside the swap meet for $6 total. Sweet. Glass Sky came from the Saturday swap meet in exchange for the disappointing Alone in My King’s Harem, which I’ve been trying to get rid of for a while. Cut, Seaview, and FreshMen came from some booth, although I forget which. Guess how many I’ve already read! Hint: Seaview is to yaoi what Voiceful is to yuri – could easily be interpreted as not male-male lusting and romancing. And Cut is apparently demonstrative of the fact that June (Digital Manga Press’ BL imprint) has decided to dispense with the dust-jacket approach =(

Then we have the Japanese tankouban I ended up with, along with an art book, and, yes, a pack of Sailor Moon playing cards. Some guy left a box of yaoi with the swap room attendants for them to announce, and said anyone could have it for nothing. We swarmed! And I was the smart one who lifted up all the manga and found an art book at the bottom, which was easily the priciest thing in the box… and therefore the best to snag for the low, low price of $0. I also grabbed the two manga volumes, the bottom of which I am pretty sure got an American release… and which was incredibly explicit. I think the title translates to ‘Target in the Finder’-ish. The other one isn’t as explicit from what I saw when flipping through.

As for the artbook, it comes from Gakuen Heaven, a silly franchise originally started with a PC dating game, Gakuen Heaven: Boys Love Scramble! (which makes me think of Strawberry Panic: Girls’ School in Fullbloom). This stuff isn’t high art. But I will admit the artbook is quite nice itself, as the artwork is actually pretty good. It helps, I suppose, that there are summaries of every route in the game… complete with some nice, nasty pictures >=D

This one is the only merchandise I bought, and it now belongs to my little cousin (I went to his party instead of the third day of the con, incidentally). There was a whole slew of merchandise that I almost bought… but didn’t. I talked myself out of a Yumi and Sachiko mug on the premise that it was too damn expensive to rationalize ($18 for a mug!). I told myself I’d buy the Jigoku Shoujo artbook the next day… but it was gone by then (oops). I thought of buying an Ayu statue, but talked myself into waiting, only to have someone else snatch it. And I put Fuuko back on the shelf after looking at her. In every case I told myself it was better to buy actual anime and manga instead of things I could only look at and dust occasionally. I am pretty bummed about the Jigoku Shoujo book, though.

And that’s a wrap for Anime Boston… I’ll probably spend the next few days hibernating and powering through all that manga and anime, so I may disappear for a few days. Already counting down for Anime Weekend Atlanta (already assuming I’ll attend!).

I made a new playlist at my other blog(haruhanafamily.blogspot.com)!!!!

YAY!

Well, I hope my other ‘family’ members like it too ’cause I do!

There’s some mistakes with Henrietta by The Fratellis though….I picked the incomplete version…Bah….

But since I’m too lazy to edit it so they have just have to bare with me…

Nah…

Oh, yeah, right, my friend, Cyn made a blog here, at WordPress too. Maybe you could check it out while you’re at it.

It’s nothing really since she hasn’t post anything yet, but I’ll type the address here for what it’s worth, ‘kay?

keylovefa.wordpress.com

In case you’re wondering, ‘Keylovefa’ is her middle name. It’s unusual, huh?

But she likes it so I have nothing to say…Btw, it’s pronounced kay-love-fa.

I’m also very happy today because yesterday, my friend Aki-chan message me again after such a long time!

I thought she’s forgotten about me already!!!

Yay!

I love you, Aki-chan!!

And we had so much fun, in fact, I’m still texting with her right now~

Recently, I’ve been reading this manga at mangafox.com..

It’s very good, in my opinion (which is completely biased since I’m practically infatuated with it for the moment… -_-u).

But anyway, it’s really good. The story revolves around a student named Ichijo Mashiro, a handsome, popular guy in his school.

BUT! He has a secret~

Okay, so his upper body was that of male’s but the lower part, from waist down, was a female’s!!!!!

Then he’s approached by a school nurse who introduced him to a new class he had to take in order to ‘graduate’. He had to come every thursdays and enter a dream world, in which the students took their ‘dream form’ and fight each other to find the mysterious key which is needed in order to graduate.

Here, he met many kinds of people. There’s Fujishima Kureha, the cutest girl in school, she took the form of a girl, wearing a ragged raincoat and a boot. Yup, just one. Her eyes were filled which such rage and shame and her face is covered by the hood of her cloak. She attacked with umbrellas that can appear out of nowhere…

0_O

The dream world, as I quote from Shinonome-kun, ”A ‘World of Anonymity’, so to speak.”

Well, it’s actually a shoujo manga but with TONS of actions in it!

So I guess boys can read it too, it’s complicated and gets you thinking. A little.

And I’ve found my bishie in that manga!!!

Shinonome Itsuki!!! The child prodigy who takes the form of a paper giraffe which implicate  that he looks down on people even though he’s weaker than them(which is why he’s made out of paper.). He can’t attack because of his ‘dream self’ condition. But he was able to know other participants’s identities.

In later chapter it is shown that he doesn’t really socialize with other students and/or look down on them because they’re also excommunicate him, because he’s smart and all that.

But then, he was able to overcome it, and he was able to defeat one of the strongest participant in the dream world and got the key from him.

So he graduated.

Bah….I want to see more of him….

…

…

Damn you, Setona Mizushiro!

Anyhow….All of the characters’s names are based on colours!

So they’re colour themed names!!!

This is Shinonome-kun!

->

Hm, hm….

Me thinks that’s all or today!

Bubye, everybody!!!

Your Friend,

Franz…

Click to download:

volume 03

Click to download:

Volume 02

There are only four books here because I finally found something I want to go on with ASAP and I’d like to post on it a little later, so if I post this now I can do a “deeper in” sort of thing in a bit.

Make sense?

After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro – Uh…students battle each other and their personal demons in order to graduate.  But only some; it’s not like “Nightmare High” or anything like that.  Ichijo Mashiro is our way into this creepy and confusing world.

Pros: It’s very complex, story-wise.  Despite being somewhat action/horror-oriented, the art isn’t very confusing.  (I’m kind of an idiot about art; my brain gets overloaded easily when it comes to artwork.)  The characters are well-rounded quickly, and despite that first “chapter” rush, the story moves at a good pace.

Cons: My inner feminist is a little twitchy.  It’s not really a spoiler, because it’s on the back, but just in case SPOILER SPACE: Ichijo Mashiro is a boy on the, uh, top half, and a girl on the bottom half.  Oh.  Okay?  But once you get past that, there’s so much going on about gender and fear and discovery, the oddness of it sort of goes away.  Sort of.

Kid-friendly?  No.  Sex and violence are all over the place.  Although it’s not gratuitous, I’d still want my daughter to wait till high school before reading it.  The male lead sleeps with a bunch of girls in hopes that one will get him over his feelings for Mashiro, and he’s horribly dismissive to them afterwards, slut-shaming all over the place.  The violence is on the same level as most horror comics, maybe a little less bloody.

Final thoughts: I’m actually pretty intrigued, despite my initial reservations.  Need to give the second volume a glance before deciding one way or another.

Dance Till Tomorrow by Naoki Yamamoto – College kid who’d rather be part a full-time part of a local theater troupe will inherit his great-grandfather’s stamp collection (worth millions) if he stays in school, gets married, etc.  Some girl finds this out and starts stalking him.  There’s a lot of stuff about acting.

Pros: It’s a great idea and the theater stuff is fun.

Cons: The art.  UGH.  Everyone’s face looks wobbly and wide.  Also, it seems like one of those stories that could possibly get drawn out way too long because when in doubt just throw in more theater stuff.

Kid-friendly?  NUDITY.  CASUAL SEX.  NO.

Final thoughts: If it only runs a couple of volumes, yes.  If it goes on for more than, say, five?  No.  (Wikipedia says seven.  I can live with that.)

Beauty is the Beast by Tomo Matsumoto – A somewhat aimless comic about dorm life.

Pros: It’s fun.  The characters are easy to follow.  The art is pretty good.

Cons: Why is “functionally retarded” a good personality for female characters in manga?  I like Eimi but she’s, what?  Sixteen acting like 5?  I find this sort of distressing, in that characters fall for her.  What are they falling for?  She skews SO immaturely it would be like crushing on a child. Which is creepy.  (I also have this problem with Honey & Clover.)

Kid-friendly? Um…yeah, tween-friendly anyway.  I guess.

Final thoughts: I really do like it.  I don’t mean to sound super negative.  The lack of plot might get to me after a while.  It’s like if someone put the lead girl from Beauty Pop into Hana-Kimi.  THAT’s my final thought.

Snow Drop Volume 1 by Choi Kyung-ah – So-Na loves flowers.  Her mom wrote a book about flowers once.  There’s a hot guy in her class who was named after a character in the book, just like her.  Gosh, I wonder what might occur between them?

Pros: They fit a lot of story into four short chapters.  I definitely felt like I was reading a longer work.  And there’s some good dramatic and even comedic stuff going on here.

Cons: Buuuuuut, one of my problems with manhwa is a cultural thing–I feel like the girls are way superficial and fashion-conscious, and that’s so not me that I have a harder time relating to them.  They can also be pretty bratty, and So-Na is definitely that.  Also, there’s no one character through which to see the situation, which means everyone is a mystery, and I don’t really want to figure EVERYONE out from the beginning.  I want to figure them out through a character.  We’re not given that here.

Kid-friendly?  Again, tween-friendly.  There’s nothing terrible going on here.  There’s some drinking, and “fuk” subs out for the more vulgar word, and So-Na gives some guys the finger…eh.

Final thoughts: I hope it’s kidding when it says “A Romeo and Juliet-style romance.”  Are they going to die at the end??  I don’t know; I’m going to give it another volume (as it’s up on the shelf), but really, I think this’ll be one of those books I pick up in two years and wonder “Did I read this?…I think I did…maybe…”

Can you guess which one I’m really into right now?

Next Wrap-Up: a (slightly) deeper look at at least three titles, then another set of first-glance reviews on Monster, Roadsong, Flower of the Deep Sleep, and–by my daughter’s request–Zodiac P.I.

After School Nightmare is a shojo manga written and illustrated by Setona Mizushiro and licensed in North America by Go! Comi.

The series is complete at ten volumes and is rated OT (older teen 16+)

Mizushiro Setona began her career drawing dōjinshi and was published for the first time as part of a dōjinsh circle in 1985. She continued to work on dōjinshi until she debut as a mangaka in 1993. [1] She has worked on nine other manga series (shojo, sports, yaoi genres) since 1998.

The translation and positive critical reception of Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare, and other manga for a 14+ and 16+ female audience, does seem to indicate a conceptual shift towards exciting, complex and challenging comics for young women that transcend the conventional North American genre expectations. The market for manga for young women has now become sufficiently established in North America that the medium and genre doesn’t need a reference point to the North American comic market. Manga for young women now exists so sufficiently in it’s own sphere that works like After School Nightmare can be assured of reaching their target audience. This is enabled through the inclusion of many shojo titles in bookstores and libraries and a reading public that knows where to access these works.

After School Nightmare is about a school whose students participate in a class that compels them to descend into a dream world where their most essential psychological selves are manifested. Once in the dream world the students must compete to locate a hidden key that will allow them to graduate from the dream class – but what awaits them upon graduation is shrouded in mystery.

The protagonist Mashiro Ichijo is a character who is struggling to live his life as a young man despite manifesting increasingly evident female sexual characteristics. When Mashiro is initiated into the dream class he manifests as a young woman – his hidden self.

A possible inspiration for After School Nightmare is Chiyo Rokuhana’s 2003 Kodansha award winning josei series IS: Otoko demo Onna demo nai Sei (IS stands for InterSexual, the subtitle “neither man or woman”). The stories in the manga are fictionalized retellings of the experiences of intersexual people Rokuhana has interviewed. Another possible influence could be Takako Shimura’s Hourou Musuko (Transient Son), which also began in 2003, about two gender-ambiguous school children though this is a lighter, slice of life, narrative.

The issue of the protagonist’s sexuality aside, Mizushiro seems as influenced by European gothic fiction narratives. Mashiro is a perfect template for an unreliable narrator as instability and lack of self-awareness are integral to gothic literature’s psychologically complex themes. While well intentioned, Mashiro’s failure to master his/her feelings is damaging to the other characters on repeated occasions and in a very literal sense in the dream world where much of the story takes place.

The suspense and horror elements of the text heighten the complexity of Mashiro’s struggle with self-identity. The horror comes from the way the internal monsterousness of the dream world’s participants is manifested – again drawing on the gothic themes of the shadow self and dédoublement.

The narrative structure of After School Nightmare is takes good advantage of the potential for suspense that the serialized publication format provides but the page layouts and sequencing are also carefully designed to save surprising or frightening visuals until subsequent pages. Following moments of intimacy or intense conversation between characters Mizushiro often visually pulls back on the follow page to reveal that there is an observer participating in the scene from a distance. This cinematic, suspense building effect is used in scenes in both volume one when Mashiro sees Sou in conversation with young woman through a series of courtyard windows and later in volume three when Shinbashi sees Mashiro and Sou in an unguardedly intimate moment.

Mizushiro uses the the very minimalist and cold architecture of the school itself to emphasize mood, disjuncture and isolation. The building where the story takes place is very present in the visual language of the story but often in such a nuanced way that it’s easy to overlook.

Mizushiro generally uses a very light and consistent line weight even in sequences that represent a lot of action. This restraint allows her to use black very effectively to give particular scenes added psychological emphasis or to quickly evoke a sense of dread. The dream scenes that depict Fujishima’s enraged dream form, tragic past and the reason for her hatred towards men are full of inky blacks that are generally absent from most other scenes.

A seminal scene in volume three where Mashiro literally confronts a full manifestation of his feminine side takes place in a vacuum with an almost completely black ground. This atmospheric use of negative space conveys Mashiro’s isolation both from others and facets of his inner self.

After School Nightmare is so visually and textually full of symbolism that one begins to strongly suspect that the entire narrative will resolve into metaphor. Each character’s dream self manifests as visual symbol of their inner turmoil and each dream participant enters the dream wearing a series of three orbs that, shattering under duress, signal the end of the dreamer’s strength and precipitate their return to the waking world. One of the more resonant symbols is a key that must be located within the story’s dream world. Locating the key allows the finder to finally graduate from the haunting psychological landscape of the dream classroom.

It’s probably obvious in the way I’ve written about After School Nightmare that I haven’t finished reading the series. Initially I found some of the themes and the way they were emphasized a bit off-putting. Subsequent reading has revealed that, while the story has remained entertaining, there is a lot happening in the text and an early judgement would inevitably be an inaccurate one. When I look back at my earlier comments on volume 1 I feel a bit of chagrined at how flippant I sound but I’m glad that I chose to write about a manga that’s so interesting and surprising.

The characters are really starting to become engaging – perhaps I’m being seduced by the complex and brooding gothic ambience (or am I really just thinking of Sou when I say that?). I really like Mashiro and I’m eager to find out how the situation resolves for this interesting and sympathetic character.

I also had an opportunity to be politely corrected in my description of Mashiro as transgender. Looking back, I have to agree that there is textual evidence that Mashiro is intersexual. This lead to research (not only to make sure I properly knew what it means to be intersexual) into other manga that have intersexual characters. I’ve mentioned two already but there are a few others (Nabari no Ou? I have to follow up on that…). Needless to say, I’m learning a lot.

Mizuhiro, Setona (w,i) and Christine Schilling (translation). After School Nightmare v1(Oct. 2006), English ed., Go! Comi. ISBN-10: 1933617160

Images: Color panel, cover art for After School Nightmare v3, panels from After School Nightmare v1

[1] Go! Comi (2008). Creator Bio. Go! Comi. Retrieved on 2008-11-11.

I’m going to leave behind strict adherence to josei series to write about After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro which, while it’s considered shojo, gets a 16+ rating (OT) from its publisher Go! Comi.

I read v.1 of After School Nighmare this weekend and it got me thinking about GLBTQ narratives and characters in manga. There are actually a lot of examples to consider which is part of what makes me so grateful for the success of manga in North America. I’m generally happy with any stories about gender ambiguity and non-hetero relationships, particularly for younger readers, but I found some of the themes in this manga a little challenging to negotiate. After School Nightmare is about a transsexual hero/heroine struggling to reconcile themselves with the duality of their gender identification and is recommended by the Young Adult Library Services Association so I was expecting something relatively nuanced. Well…

I’m left with the impression that Mashiro Ichijo is completely female physically but there are a few confusing references to being male from the “waist up” and about his/her tall, lean physique being qualitatively masculine. It’s a bit vexing that such conventional ideas of male-female physical attributes are being adhered to despite this, ostensibly, being a story about gender ambiguity.

The true basis for Ichijo’s affinity for the masculine side of his/her persona and body is still a mystery but its hard to fault that decision within the context of the series because being female is framed consistently negatively. (In Ichijo’s case the disconnect between physical and psychological gender is not innate but is continually being examined intellectually.) The story starts with a very literal invocation of what Simone De Beauvoir described as the feminine quandary of being a “leaky vessel”. There are repeated references to the female body and mind being weak, a textual norm reenforced by Ichijo’s interpretation of his/her loss of a recent kendo match as a result of feminine physical deficiency. (One panel in particular really communicates the significance that clutching the bamboo kendo blade has for Ichijo.) I can acknowledge that a lot of these references and even the lost kendo match, specifically, have a greater narrative significance but I still have a bit of trouble getting past all the negative language around being female in a series that’s written for young women.

As old-school gothic horror I think After School Nightmare is a success but for me to have hoped that it would convey anything complex or even positive about gender roles or the transgender experience was a bit optimistic. Mostly the series focuses on the potential sexy outcomes of the creepy attention directed at Ichijo by deeply disturbed and unlikable characters of both genders. Will poor, confused Ichijo ends up with the sociopath misogynist or the sociopath misandrist and will he/she manage to escape from this manga’s take on hentai tentacles?

Perhaps as the story develops some of the themes around gender will coalesce into something a bit more complex and subtle but I’m not anticipating anything more then weird teenage misery-titillation. Not that I have anything against weird teenage misery-titillation.

Despite my reservations about some of the subtext I don’t personally subscribe to the idea that literature for teens needs to be prescriptive. This isn’t the complex gender-ambiguity text I might have hoped for but it has lots of – potentially enjoyable – psychologically convoluted, symbolist-prevy, non sequitur plot elements.

One might prefer a gothic-baroque visual extravaganza a la Vampire Knight or Godchild to Mizushiro’s delicate line work and minimally rendered settings but it’s interesting to see a lighter aesthetic touch applied to this kind of story.

This series seems to be quite popular at my public library (which is where I got the copy I read – yay, thanks public library!) with lots of requests placed on the more recent volumes.

I would really love to beat up the people responsible for the fact that crap like Rosario + Vampire get TV series while good stuff like this does not.

After School Nightmare is a manga that reminds me very heavily of Revolutionary Girl Utena, in that it features a lot of questions about gender and that it carries the change from adolescence to adulthood as the center of its concerns, albiet buried under a lot of symbolism.

After School Nightmare starts off with an immediate hook – our hero, Mashiro Ichijo, experiences the beginning of his first period.

Wait, what?

While this may sound like a bad trope right out of a BL series, in After School Nightmare it is the beginning of an identity crisis, for Mashiro is a boy who was born with a male upper half and female lower half. This more obvious sign of identity crisis is only symbolic of the crisis of identity all face in their adolescence, and a jumping off point for all the other characters’ own crises of coming of age.

However, to simply leave it at Mashiro bleeding once a month despite considering himself to be male, there is the added layer of intrigue in the form of a special class all students must take in order to graduate. In these classes, students are grouped into sections of five apiece, and sent off to a dream land straight out of a Bosch painting. Here students fight one another, in a dream form that reveals their trues selves, for possession of a key that will unlock the door into another world for them. But, even as many of the students vie for the right to enter the new world, no one knows what lies beyond… just that they must reach it to graduate, and that the teacher says it will grant their wishes.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Utena, it comes as no shock that I also am enjoying After School Nightmare. Admittedly, I have yet to complete the series, as it just concluded in Japan earlier this year, and volume eight is due out in August (originally, July), but I feel that it would be very difficult for the series to veer so utterly off course as to prevent me from recommending it to others.

After School Nightmare does fall under the shoujo classification, but is much closer in kind to the likes of Utena than, say, Alice 19th or Vampire Knight. Like Utena, After School Nightmare is very interested in the process of going from childhood into adulthood, and does not shy away from the complexities or ambiguities involved. After School Nightmare also has a good deal of interest in the question of gender – what is gender? What does it mean to be a girl? A boy? Does it matter? Does gender matter when it comes to love?

Although the manga has one of those dreaded hallmarks of shoujo manga – the love triangle! – here it is used to further underline the questions of gender. Mashiro initially dates Kureha, a girl who severely dislikes men as a result of having been raped as a child – and having a father whose chief worry about the matter was that she had become ‘damaged goods’ – only to find another classmate, Sou, interested in him. Kureha is alright with dating Mashiro precisely because he isn’t completely male, something that comes to plague the relationship as she becomes more comfortable around guys as the story progresses. Sou does not view Mashiro as a guy – he sees him as definitely female, although it is unclear whether, despite his insistence that Mashiro acts like a girl, if this is since he genuinely believes Mashiro to be a girl, or if he is unwilling to admit being attracted to a boy.

In addition to this complication, we are also treated to dysfunctional family relations (featuring incest, distant mothers, and bad fathers), and the litany of feelings associated with growing up (loneliness, a sense of non-importance, fear of the future, nostalgia for things past). In the dream world, people become paper giraffes, girls walk around faceless, and limbs become the sole expression of self. Nothing seems beyond the scope of consideration within these pages.

As for technical details, Setona Mizushiro’s art is pleasing to the eye, and while definitely shoujo, does not stray into the more outrageous realms. The characters in the book look their age, and look like real people might if someone drew them in manga form. Meanwhile, the dream world is rendered in styles ranging from surreal to remembrances of places past, depending on which character is in control, while the characters themselves gain an array of different forms, from somewhat grotesque to startlingly simple.

I cannot recommend the American edition enough – artwork is cleanly reporduced, binding is good, translation is sharp, and liner notes are helpful. I have found in more recent times that I am appreciating the work of the smaller manga publishers more than that of the larger ones, and Go! Comi is no exception. The price-point is slightly higher ($10.99 instead of the industry norm or $9.99), but it is well worth the money spent.

In closing, I would say that anyone who enjoyed Utena will, quite obviously, enjoy this series, and that I sincerely wish it would get an animated incarnation. If you’re on the fence, pick up the first volume – it won’t hurt, and chances are, you’ll enjoy it. And for those of you still unconvinced… hmm, well, there is a loli and some sibcon.

Il manga di Setona Mizushiro inizia all’interno di una doccia.La prima inquadratura mostra un chiazza di sangue a terra.La seconda inquadratura, però, non mostra una ragazza stupita dal primo ciclo mestruale, bensi un ragazzo.Mashiro Ichijo è infatti ermafrodita.La parte superiore del suo corpo è maschile, quella inferiore femminile.

Piu’ di una volta i manga hanno toccato l’argomento “ambiguità sessuale” , basti pensare al celebre Ranma 1/2 dove, però, il protagonista diventava donna per colpa di una maledizione.In altri casi, si trattava di uno sdoppiamento di personalità; magari reso possibile dalla magia.In questo caso lo schema è rotto, la/il protagonista è geneticamente così dalla nascita.

Mizushiro, nonostante tutto, si sente un ragazzo ma è chiaramente turbato dalla situazione.Nessuno sa di lui (presubilmente i genitori si, ma non compaiono nel primo volume) e non ci tiene che si sappia.

E’ costretto a lasciare il club di kendo, per via del ciclo appena iniziato, e lo fa a malincuore.Praticare quello sport era come confermare, a se stesso, di essere un uomo forte. Da questo punto in poi ci addentriamo nella parte psycho/fantasy della storia.

Il ragazzo (denominiamolo così per il momento) nota che nella sua classe gli studenti stanno sparendo giorno dopo giorno.Sembra essere l’unico ad avere questa sensazione, perchè di una sensazione si tratta, visto che anche lui non è certo della cosa.Nel corridoio della scuola incontra una professoressa con un camice che non aveva mai visto.Si tratta, pensa, dell’infermiera scolastica che gli dice di seguirla nell’infermeria sotterranea, della quale Maizushiro non aveva mai sentito parlare e della quale non aveva nemmeno mai visto l’entrata, nonostante passasse di li tutti i giorni.In questa infermeria si trovano una serie di letti a baldacchino, con chiaramente delle persone che stanno dormendo.

La donna qui gli spiega che solo gli studenti convocati, come lui, possono accedere (e vedere) quel posto e gli chiede di partecipare al corso speciale per diplomarsi.La confusione nel ragazzo è chiara, ma in poche pagine si ritrova in un altra dimesione, pensiamo.Stà infatti sognando, e con lui sognano i vari ragazzi convocati (e spariti dalle classi).Nel sogno comunque, i vari ragazzi si mostrano per quello che sono, mostrano il loro vero essere, che nella vita reale viene celato.

Si tratta di studenti con seri problemi piscologici ,che lascerò scoprire a chi vuole leggere il manga.Il mistero in questo lavoro è molto, e nel primo volume veniamo a sapere che si diploma chi trova una fantomatica chiave.A cosa serva, e dove si trovi, ancora non si sa.Mi fermo qui con la descrizione per non rovinare la sorpresa, visto che si tratta del primo volume, ma dal prossimo volume vedrò di entrare più nel dettaglio.

La sceneggiatura è miolto buona, ed incuriosisce molto il lettore.Non trovo il tratto nulla di che, anzi, mi sembra rientri nel classico tratto da fumetto per ragazze di questo secolo.Probabile sia voluto, ma non è la prima volta che il manga psicologico sposa il genere shoujo, quindi nulla di nuovo all’orizzonte.

Il/la protagonista è ben delineato, anche se trovo un pò inprobabile che una persona che si trova in una particolare situazione come quella illustrata, accetti tutto di buon grado senza fare molte domande e restando prevaentemente calmo.Gli atri personaggi, sono forse meglio caratterizzati in questo, ma non è dato sapere per il momento che reazione abbiano avuto all’inizio della loro personale avventura, e non è detto si saprà nel corso del manga.

In definitiva trovo “After School Nightmare” un buon titolo del genere, ma nulla di così strepitoso come gli appassinati hanno decantato.Per quanto mi riguarda vince la curiosità, e quindi prenderò sicuramente anche il secondo volume.Non amando il tratto, se la sceneggiatura dovesse calare, allora abbandonerò l’opera senza pensarci due volte.

Page 12 has been added.

On another note, I have just recently begun reading the manga “After school Nightmare”. I’m only halfways into the 2nd volume, but I already like it a lot. The plot seems very original to me, and it has some of the same occult vibes that I also get from xxxHolic.Every thursday, students at the school must enter a special ‘class’ where they enter a nightmare – and in the dream they take on the true form of their hearts. Not only does the students have to go through a lot of things in these dreams, but they also have to face the other students the next day, knowing that they may have been there and seen their darkest secrets.

I must say I really hate Sou though. I can imagine a lot of certain fangirls loving him being there, but the story has to come up with something really good for me to accept him anytime soon

Title: After School Nightmare volume 1

Author: Setona Mizushiro

Publisher: Go! Comi 

Imagine yourself as a freshman in high school, all the girls are falling for your mysterious looks.  You can’t walk down the hallway without groups of cuties chatting about you in anxious whispers.  You can have any one of these girls except one morning you’re taking a shower and have your first…period.  Such is the life of Ichijo Mashiro, the first hermaphaditic manga character I’ve ever been introduced to.

Mashiro goes to a very special school.  He/she realizes that someone mysteriously vanishes every so often and that no one notices until much after the fact.  One day  after school Mashiro is approached by the school nurse who explains that all students must complete a “special” course in order to graduate.  Not having a choice, Mashiro follows the lady to the basement infirmary, unaware the school even had a basement.  Here he encounters a room with draped beds on both sides and is instructed to sit.  Here he encounters his first after school nightmare…

After his first class, he is informed he must come once a week after school to experience his worst nightmare.  He and several of his classmates are to meet in this nightmare and look for the “key.”  This key is the way out of the nightmare and graduation.  Students are instructed to do whatever necessary to find this key, even killing.  Each student wears a necklace with three beads.  Every time the person receives emotional or physical damage, a bead breaks.  Once all three beads break, the nightmare is over and you are to come back the following week to experience it all over again.  In this nightmare, the person does not assume their true form but what their soul looks like.  Mashiro, unaware whether he is a boy or girl appears in his normal school attire but with a skirt on the lower half of his body.

After his first nightmare, Mashiro meets Kureha, the girl from the dream who stabbed him to death with an umbrella.  He soon finds out her traumatic past that has led her to mistrust all men and that memory which she is forced to endure every class.  Kureha however figured out that Mashiro is indeed half-woman so she feels comfortable around him and soon they are the most gossiped couple in school.  Mashiro also bumps into Sou, a man with a heart of steel who sleeps with fellow classmates for fun in the nursing room.  Sou is rumored to be the black night in the after school nightmare and figures not all is right down there in Mashiro’s pants.  After being paired for after school duties, Sou decides to make a move on Mashiro.

After School Nightmare presents an unsettling mix of yaoi and yuri. Mashiro, who is half man, half female on the bottom is in the middle of a future love triangle with Kureha and Sou.  Kureha and Mashiro of course being part/all female and Sou and Mashiro being part/all male.  Being the straight male that I am, yaoi pretty much freaks me out and when I see Sou leaning over for the kill I can’t help but cringe.  I can’t even take comfort in “lesbian” relationship between Mashiro and Kureha because Mashiro is half male and that’s just not hot.

However, the strength of After School Nightmare is not in the yaoi or yuri? battle but in the artwork.  I was previously introduced to Setona Mizushiro with the now out of print manga X-Day from Tokyopop. X-Day is a shojo style series regarding three children and a teacher who meet in an online forum and decide to blow up the school.  After School Nightmare retains the same shojo style characters in a nightmarish world.  One of the most intriguing characters in the “nightmare” world is the girl with a hole in her face.  Mashiro soon learns her true identity and the face that the girl lost after realizing she spent her whole life living up to other’s expectations.  She now has no idea who she is once free from entrance exam pressures.

 After School Nightmare is definitely one of the more unique manga series I’ve bumped into.  If I didn’t find out this was from the same author as X-Day or recommended it, I doubt that I would’ve ever picked up this series from the shelf.  Not that I read any yaoi or doujinshi, but I highly doubt anyone has released a story starring a hermaphrodite in the states at least.  The yaoi scenes do disturb me and this may impair me in new volumes in the future.  I have already decided to check out volume 2 but if the yaoi scenes become stronger I will have to axe this series.  Currently I am excited to see how Mashiro exits this nightmare world.

Rating: 4/5