Manga: Reviews of Red Colored Elegy and The Promised Neverland, Vol. 1

Time Codes: 00:00:29 - Introduction 00:02:43 - Listener mail! 00:07:10 - Red Colored Elegy 00:42:32 - The Promised Neverland, Vol. 1 01:14:32 - Wrap up 01:15:27 - Contact us Shea and Derek are back with their February manga episode. This month they look at two titles that, in many ways, are diametrically opposite in terms of style and audience. They begin with Seiichi Hayashi's Red Colored Elegy, the softcover edition of which has just been released from Drawn and Quarterly. This is the story of two young artists cohabiting and the struggles they endure with their families, they work, and their relationship with one another. But there's much more going on in this narrative, as the guys abundantly point out. This is an experimental work that was originally serialized in Garo during the early 1970s, and Hayashi's variations in visual style, along with his employment of nonconventional storytelling techniques, are what make this such an intriguing and significant work. After that, Shea and Derek discuss the first volume of Kaiu Shirai and Posuka Demizu's The Promised Neverland (VIZ Media). It's a fantastical, and even futuristic, series about a community of orphans who learn that their comfortable life is undergirded by demonic forces. Both of the guys appreciate Demizu's art, and they're intrigued by the series' premise. At the same time, they wonder about some of the choices the creators made toward the end of this first volume, especially regarding narrative focalization. But they're both interested in seeing how things develop and if, indeed, Shirai's storytelling choices turn out to be effective as the plot unfolds. VIZ Media released the second volume of the series earlier this month, but the guys weren't able to get copies of that text in time for this recording (despite reaching out several times to the publisher's publicity department).