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ぼく虫―西岡兄妹初期作品集
16
1
Finished
Oct 19, 1989 to Apr 24, 1996
7.5/10
Average Review Score
50%
Recommend It
2
Reviews Worldwide
Nishioka Kyoudai are a manga duo, probably most know for Kami no kodomo, and this is a selection of their earliest work. It looks and feels the same as any of their future work: simple child-like artwork, but with an outsider charm and an eye for composition and interesting patterns. These works are dark, surreal, and gruesome, but the chosen art style might make the disturbing content a bit more palatable. It's a mixture of poetic, quasi-poetic, nihilistic, sad-sack, existential fragments. Sometimes with more or less of those descriptors. You'll see many of the same motifs repeating. Searching for something to make the narrator "complete,"but usually looking in all of the wrong places. For example, umm... the womb. Yeah... it's one of those kinds of compilations of stories with obvious symbolism about wombs, and crawling into them, and pulling stuff out of them that shouldn't be there—and butterflies on the walls, and creepy ball-jointed dolls. Probably half of the characters are borderline or actual sociopaths/psychopaths or serial killers—or are isolated, disconnected, live a meaningless existence, etc. I'm highly curious as to whether it is a common IRL "trope" for serial killers to actually dig through their victim in hopes of finding something special—it's definitely a thing in the work of Nishioka Kyoudai, though. There are plenty of dismembered corpses in explicit detail, but the art is too childlike for it to be especially disturbing, and it even somehow takes on a more poetic quality—however laughable it may feel to write that. The characters so often look like corpses with their soulless eyes, so who can be shocked at seeing a corpse in this upside-down world? There is some meaning to be found, though I wouldn't say all of the stories are terribly deep or compelling, but it's worth it for the art alone, if you're keen on the style. The art direction is excellent, with striking patterns and textures, an array of cute and disturbing knickknacks that provide oodles of contrast. Sometimes it's amazing how they can go from being terribly cryptic to as blunt as possible: a man with a woman who chirps like a bird, who is only good for the ol' "in-and-out," and not knowing what to do with her, he finds a birdcage to stuff her away in to hopefully abate her squawking, then she flies away. Bahahaha. These are probably best taken as eerie dream excerpts—on occasion, nightmarish, and other times merely dreamy—spun with a little bit of poetic gloss and self-loathing. Or if a surrealist painter were making picture books for children that no sane parent would want their children reading. The two Night shorts are probably my favorites for how undiluted they are in dreaminess.
A collection of sixteen early works by Nishioka Kyodai, including their three-part debut series. As always the stories range from the whimsical to the surreal, with tales of serial killers, bird women, and a man who one day wakes to find himself with a pouch like a kangaroo. (Source: MU) 1. Jump 2. Boku Mushi 3. Aru Kinzoku Bat Jisatsu 4. Mono no Okibasho 5. Torikago 6. Kaze no Fuiteiru Hi 7. Ame no Futteiru Hi 8. Nichiyoubi 9. Tanjoubi 10. Satsujinki-P no Noroi 11-12. Yoru 13. Harigane 14. Boku ga Koroshita Mono: Tobirabito 15. Boku ga Koroshita Mono: Kangaroo no Matsuei 16. Boku ga Koroshita Mono: Shinkei
"Boku Mushi" is, on the one hand, a fairly interesting manga to read if you are already into the Nishioka siblings' works and want to take a look on some of their earliest pieces. It is striking to see the difference, especially in aesthetic terms, between their works from the late 80's and the ones throughout the early 90's. Thematically, on the other hand, this manga bothered me sometimes. I am not by any means trying to imply something about the authors' character or anything of the sort, but I found it remarkable how often they tend to rely on violent imagery directed towards female figures,be it physically or conceptually. Of course that is not a political statement by itself, since their work as a whole relies heavily on such aesthetic portayals of an amoral apathetic reality. Even so, there are moments in which the violence seems quite gratuitous and meaningless (not in the good sense). There are some others (as the Rainy Day and Windy Day duo) that do deal with it well, though. Besides that main complaint, there are some really striking chapters in here. The Nishiokas' style is one of a kind and I cannot avoid how much it resonates with me on an emotional level, even in its less creative moments. I still cannot recommend this work as much as I would like to, since I believe they tend to be more thematically creative and consistent in their more mature pieces, making the reviewed manga a must only once you have already read the best they have to offer. The manga itself recognizes these are their "leftovers" from the "Jigoku" collection, which displays a healthy amount of self-awareness. Although, as they put, "there might be a place for leftovers".