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Story and Art by Mochizuki Minetaro
Copyright © 1995-1998 Mochizuki Minetaro
Young Magazine (Yanmaga KC Special)
7 volumes and continuing
¥541 each volume |
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—by Eric "Scanner" Luce
If one spends a lot of time reading various works of
fiction, whether it be fantasy novels, science fiction
novels, or American, at times it may seem hard to find new
material to read. After dipping deep into the well of known
authors, one eventually comes to a time when even though the
racks are full of books, you do not know what to read next.
You start asking friends for new things to read. You even
start to scan through the ranks of the unknown hoping to
find that diamond in the rough. In the world of manga,
especially in the states, lean times can hit all too often.
That is why finding such gems as DRAGON
HEAD make it worth that look outside of what you
know.
This series is intense. A
good part of the story so far is trying to figure out just
what happened. As usually with such situations when you
think you may be close to getting some answers the mystery
just gets stranger.
The story starts out with one
of our protagonists, Teru, awakening. He is not able to see
anything but he can dimly hear the sound of a radio playing.
As his eyes adjust to the darkness he sees that he has
awakened in the aftermath of a shinkansen (bullet train)
crash. He realizes within moments that everyone around him
is dead and the train is a shambles. When no one responds
to his screams for rescue he slowly recalls the last thing
he remembers before the darkness. He was returning on the
shinkansen with the rest of his classmates from a school
trip. He had just borrowed a CD from a friend and as he got
back to his car he saw something amazing out the window. The
train then entered a tunnel. There was a loud crash and then
darkness.
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Teru slowly comes to his
senses and manages to extract himself from the wreckage of
the train seats. He immediately stumbles over the dead
body of his friend. Finding a lighter in the pocket of his
dead teacher he manages to finally see the wreckage. After
going through several cars everyone he has seen is dead.
When he reaches one of the conductor cabins, Teru gets a
mag-light and begins investigating outside the train, hoping
to find the tunnel exit and get some help. However his
nightmare is nowhere near over. The train is totally sealed
in. What the train collided with was the collapsed
tunnel.
Teru withdraws into himself
inside the ruined train. While remembering scenes from home
he thinks he hears a voice. Trying to find the voice he gets
another surprise. A girl is semi-conscious and latches on to
his ankle. Teru comes upon Nobuo. Nobuo has found the
mag-light that Teru was using. Teru is simply glad to find
two more living beings. But Nobuo seems a bit on-edge with
finding an actual person instead of just disembodied
voices.
This is how the story begins.
Earlier it was called a nightmare and it frequently seems to
be such. The reader is left wondering through the first
book and almost all of the second book with our three
teenagers trapped in a tunnel. We do not know what caused
this disaster. It is not until most of the way through
volume two that we get more than two clues that this is not
just a simple earthquake. For example, why are the
characters continually sweating and complaining about how
hot is in the tunnel? It is not just because they may be
running out of oxygen.
The story keeps moving. An
intriguing set of main characters try to stay alive in this
now drastically changed, severe world. We become tied to
Seto-san and Teru as they struggle against an unforgiving
environment, sometimes murderous intent and the hints of
unfolding mystery that may be beyond human ken.
After seven volumes we know a
bit more about what is happening but too many things remain
to puzzle us. Minetaro manages to keep that level of tension
and mystery consistent. As more is revealed, readers are
still left with the uncomfortable feeling of a world out of
joint. What the characters need to do to stay alive is
sometimes distracting, but always the mystery comes back to
demand attention. This only serves to force you to want to
read more of the story.
The artwork itself is quite
well done. The characters in the foreground are drawn with a
fine line but firm line. There is a lot of detail in the
characters faces, bodies. The backgrounds are also quite
detailed and show the same fine but firm line used in
drawing the characters. The backgrounds tend to fuzz out
towards the edges causing the main characters to stand out
against their environment even though it is drawn in a
similar style. The covers are all unique and very striking.
It was these that drew me to pick up this story in the first
place. Each one is different featuring a character in the
story.
Obviously this story is worth
reading. Unfortunately it requires a somewhat advanced
reading level. There are almost no furigana to help
the struggling kanji learner. Also the reader may require
patience to wind his way through the events that seem to
take forever to
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