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ヴァンデミエールの翼
8
2
Finished
Nov 25, 1995 to Nov 25, 1997
8.0/10
Average Review Score
100%
Recommend It
1
Reviews Worldwide
"Wings help us achieve freedom, they free us from the curse of gravity and defy god...." But for Vendemiaire, there is no freedom. "Wings of Vendemiaire" is a poignant manga that focuses on the lives (or unlives) of a group of winged puppets, all called Vendemiaire. These Vendemiaire are the penultimate caged birds; beings that extract sympathy from man and are sequentially tried to be set free.Though it is Vendemiaire that must come to realize that the cage is not as strong as it may appear. Story: Mohiro Kito is damn good at creating stories that are both disturbing and beautiful. They are not, by any means, simpleor easy to understand. "Wings of Vendemiaire" contains several sub-plots, but all seem to fixate on one central theme (I'll let you decide what exactly that theme is). Some of the sub-plots are hard to understand and if you don't pay attention to the words you may miss some vital information in trying to get the story as a whole. Art: I don't love the art in Kito's works as much as I love the story and the characters, but many of the simple backgrounds and expressions of the characters help carry the weight of the heavy theme. Character: The Vendemiaire know that they are not human, and yet their actions and personalities progressively change with each chapter. They are inevitably kind and good-hearted, but deep seated in their want to be set free is a strange similitude to the one great human flaw. Enjoyment/Overall: I wasn't quite sure if I really understood this manga, even after I went back and re-read some things that I didn't pay attention to the first time. I believe that the enjoyment of "Wings of Vendemiaire" depends on if you think it has meaning, or is just a stream of consciousness from the great Mohiro Kito. I can leave you with only one representative question: "what would happen, if the caged bird fought back?"
The story is broken up into eight differing sub-stories all involving a series of living puppets known as Vendemiaire (which is also the name of each). These stories all have a similar formula involving a Vendemiaire puppet encountering a boy or man that tries to help them with varying levels of success, usually trying to attain freedom for them. Overall these stories are somber and explore different contrasting opinions of human nature and how people use the Vendemiaire like slaves or worse.