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MANGA REVIEWS

Volume 1
Story and Art by Tamegai Tohru and Sagara Naoya
Copyright © 1999 Tamegai Tohru / Sagara Naoya / RUNNINGFREE






Kana
—by Eric "Scanner" Luce

"Atashi wa ningen jyanai."—"I am not human." With a subtitle like that and the cover art, this manga almost telegraphs itself to the reader. Yet another story about some young female demon, devil, monster who has relationships with humans during what may be termed "interesting times." And indeed, this is such a story. It promises the usual bits of angst about a girl trapped between several worlds—not being a human, but having half-human blood, having a friend who is human and dealing with a secret council of human agents who have a dark agenda. What is there that would make someone want to read this particular story over countless other similar ones?
  Luckily, as it turned out, a fair amount. KANA's formula is a popular one and successful since it has such appeal. The art is quite fine and makes the manga pleasant to simply look at. The reader also gets the impression that there is more depth to the main characters than is typical for this setting.
  Where does it all start? Abe Yuuji-kun is a middle school student. Rushing to catch a late subway train after school, he just misses it and has to wait on the platform for the next one. He notices a girl staring at him from the other end of the platform. At first Yuuji-kun wonders if she is staring at someone else, but there is no one else on the platform this late at night. Perhaps there is something funny about him that she is staring at, so Yuuji-kun checks but nothing seems out of place on his person. He walks up to her and asks if there is something she wants. She gives no reaction. Yuuji-kun begins to feel even more unsure of what to do and resorts to telling her his name. She finally reacts and says that her name is Kana. Before Yuuji-kun is able to ask anything else, the next train arrives at the platform and he gets on. When he turns around, there is Kana on the platform, still staring at him. When he asks if she is not going to get on, Kana nods. As the door closes Yuuji-kun hurriedly asks if they will meet again. The door closes before he can get an answer, but on the other side of the glass Kana is smiling.
  It is a fairly simple start to the story. We start with the mystery of just who is Kana and how will her relationship with Yuuji-kun develop. By placing it at the opening, that theme becomes the focus for our interest in the story. As we meet Yuuji-kun's elder sister (and his only family since their parents have died) we get a sense of his past and the sadness that lies there. When we further encounter Rou, the Oo-kami guardian of Kana, we find out that she is also without family, making the possible relationship even more poignant.
  Into this is thrown the troubling nature of Kana's heritage and a secret council trying to control various spirits for some grand-sweeping nefarious purpose, setting the stage for several opposing forces that will seek to either tear Kana and Yuuji-kun apart or bring them inextricably closer together.
  A nice feature of this story is that even though Yuuji-kun is only human, he provides valuable assistance and major plot points along the way. Even with the pacing of some events seeming extremely forced, you do not get the feeling of an overall destiny that is impelling the non-human character and dragging the human counterpart willy-nilly. That both characters are naive to their destinies and simultaneously learn about each other and their worlds adds to the charm.
  The art for this story is on a whole other dimension. With story by Tamegai Tohru and art by Sagara Naoya, this manga is extremely well refined. The lines are extremely fine yet solid. There are no rough edges here. The backgrounds themselves are sparse and not very frequent. A large amount of zip tone is used to give a good sense of depth as well. The real gift for me was in the expressions of the characters. They are almost never drawn with great exaggeration and yet they convey an extremely strong sense of the character's emotions. A small smile, a nod, a tear from an eye—it is all in there. To add a little contrast, there are a few places where a caricature is used to increase the humor of a passage. These give some levity to a story that otherwise would suffer from being too serious.
  There are occasional furigana in this story which make reading for the kanji-impaired a bit more of a challenge. However, there are no complex interpretations so it should not scare away beginning readers. KANA is a story that promises an interesting relationship and I'm looking forward to volume 2 to see if the promise holds true.

Published by GUM Comics
1 volume, ongoing
194 pages, b/w with color intro pages
ISBN4-8470-3286-1
¥950
Available now in Japan
Where to buy


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