The Roulette Wheel has spun, and it has chosen!
Welcome back to Book Club! This installment of Random Manga Roulette is about 7th Garden, a manga by Mitsu Izumi.
One of my favorite manga of all time is Magus of the Library, Izumi's newer, ongoing work. It's an expansive fantasy adventure about a world where near everyone is in love with books, and a young elf boy, Theo Fumis, goes on a journey because he wants to be a Kafna -- which in this world is a specialty librarian who works in the world's largest library in a crossroads city called Aftzaak. However, cultural prejudice is a common ailment of this world, and the story has much to do with overcoming differences and fostering the cultivation of knowledge and creativity. It is an absolutely beautiful, stunning manga -- truly the hidden gem of hidden gems, and though it is published at a painfully slow pace, I would recommend it to everyone.
But we aren't here to talk about that! We're here to talk about Izumi's manga before Magus of the Library, and that is 7th Garden.
I happened upon this manga in a used music shop, and bought it due to my respect and adoration of the author. Unlike Magus of the Library, however, 7th Garden is a more mature, violent, and fanservice-y series, which made me hesitant at first, but I'll explain in this post why I'm glad I gave it a shot.
Set in a proto-Victorian, semi-Georgian (and maybe post industrial revolution??) era fantasy world, 7th Garden's setting is dominated by an overt religious presence, wherein the work itself describes everyone as almost unanimously and "unquestioningly believing in God."
Awyn, our main character, falls into a large pit one day, and by accident, awakens a demon. The first chapter is a lot of setup, but ends with Awyn making a pact with this demon to save his town from a religious crusade, in which the knights of the church (in this world their faith is known as "Anti-Quoristanity") came out of nowhere to slaughter the innocent peasant masses, despite being devout followers of the same faith... interesting, no?
Counter to the perspective of virtually everyone else in this world, Awyn is an atheist, who abandoned his belief in god after the violent loss of his parents. He believes god either does not exist or has forsaken the world, which is used as leverage by the now nameless demon to take advantage of him as a host. From there, the narrative is primarily about the world's main religious institution attempting to eliminate his town, and he using his newfound demonic powers to mow them down. Hyper violence, lambs to the slaughter.
Gotta love manga, right? A big chainsaw-lookin' sword in an 1800's world. Crazy shit like this really is a big reason I love the medium.
If you read my previous Random Manga Roulette on Queen Emeraldas, you'll recall I had some criticisms for the story's general narrative flow and pace. In the case of 7th Garden, I'm shocked to say that for its, uh, rather generic premise, the story is actually paced really well. It's a VERY wordy read, but information is parsed out to us at a steady speed, and infused with worldbuilding/character building that evens out the reading experience in a way I wasn't expecting.
Awyn is not the most interesting character in the world, and neither is his demonic partner, but I think that's made up for in most other aspects of this manga. The art is gorgeous, the character designs are beautiful, and as I said above, the pace sits nicely alongside some compelling "devil on your shoulder" type storytelling that I can assume might lead to interesting conflicts down the road. Due to this manga being a fanservice-y series, I had wholly assumed it would suck, but Izumi's talent as a writer shone through the cracks and made me actually interested in what happens next. The main antagonists (who else but an allegory for the Catholics?) are not original by any means, but at the sake of sounding biased, I always enjoy bad-guy factions with religious motivations. So that's a plus.
We have to address the elephant in the room, though, because I've thrown around the term "fanservice-y" without explaining myself.
Disclaimer, and please take the time to understand me: I have no issues with ecchi as a genre. It amounts to softcore pornography, but that kind of art certainly has its place. However, it is not usually an avenue in which I've found worthwhile storytelling. We're sexual beings, by and large, and there's nothing wrong with reading something because the character designs (and how they end up in various states of undress) appeal to you. But within the ecchi titles I've read, I've noticed not even half of what makes a good "story," and to my knowledge, this situation is pervasive. When you wanna be thrilled, scared, cry, laugh, shocked, all of the above -- you turn to narratives. When you kinda wanna get your rocks off, you maybe turn to something that flicks at the horny center of your brain. It is what it is. For whatever reason, more sensual manga don't bother with good writing.
Here is where we hit a conundrum. 7th Garden is not really an ecchi title (uhh, as of volume one). It is a shonen with some female nudity in it, obviously meant to titillate a male audience. But only like, three or four times. This is why I used the term "fanservice-y," which is different from what amounts, in essence, to softcore porn. You can have sex and nudity in a story that is not pornography, absolutely, but manga generally struggles with this. To me, this stream of serious story and then -- boop! -- an out-of-place ass in your face is just... distracting.
I have to wonder whether a story with the potential of 7th Garden would be better off having either NONE of this (or at least having it more relevant to the story), or going full ecchi-mode, presenting a unique story within the confines of softcore pornography. I'm sure media like this exists, but the ecchi that tries, (that I've read, at least), fails miserably. As it stands in 7th Garden, it's basically just an extra element to appeal to the demographic. I find that unnecessary.
Definitely NOT begging Izumi to go full-throttle with her stunning character designs or anything. Nope. Never. Not me. I've only read this shit for research, man. I like it for the story, you wouldn't get it, man. I have a blog to write, I'm a writer, we gotta read far and wide, man.
Getting back to other topics, I want to mention this before we wrap it up -- the manga seems to have a bit of a running motif with gardens, and that leads to a few obvious comparisons. The Garden of Eden, of course, and perhaps something euphemistic. I eat that shit up. Give me more symbolism! Give me more emblematic ideas, things under the surface, double meanings and hidden concepts! Give me literary! Aghh, my inner English teacher is writhing!
Or writing.
Okay I'm done here. Will I read more? I might, actually. At the end of this experiment I'll have to take all the titles I liked and weight which ones deserve my time and money. Excuse me -- more of my time and money.
Bye bye bitches
- Austin
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