Title: The Dreaming Volume(s): 3 Author(s): Queenie-Chan Format: Unflipped; Left-to-Right Publisher: Tokyopop MSRP: $29.99 Genre(s): Fantasy/Horror Rated: Teen (13+)

 

CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents, this manga was given a Teen rating for a reason. The main problem is with some disturbing images and a dead body. Not disturbing in terms of sexual, but in terms of implicating violence. You should keep your eyes open. Fantasy and horror fans please give this a chance. It’s an Australian manga (not even American, but Australian), but it’s good.

Tokyopop has been trying to get Americans to write manga. This isn’t a bad thing, but most of the results have been bad: Kevin’s review of Peach Fuzz, for example, was not very optimistic. Oni Press publishes the only other American mangas reviewed on this site, and those books also don’t have the best stories out there. Amid all the garbage and treasure both licensed from Japan and published in the US enters The Dreaming. While I haven’t read Peach Fuzz and I haven’t read enough of Mark of the Succubus to write a review, I can assure you that The Dreaming, as of the first volume at least, is not a third strikeout. It takes all the brilliant artwork of Japanese manga and spins a mysterious tale of its own that rivals XXXholic and Pet Shop of Horrors. Believe me when I say that this is an accomplishment. It’s what publishing companies are searching for in the wake of Harry Potter and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

The story starts out with twin sisters Amber and Jeanie (my spell-check must be sighing in relief) arriving at their new boarding school. The reason that they’re attending is that their aunt’s the headmistress and for some reason they have nowhere to go. (Their parents are alive, however, so it leaves some plotlines for the next two volumes.) Their aunt also tells them one more thing before leaving for three months for some job: they must not tell the vice-principal that they’re twins, otherwise they’ll get expelled. The girls are confused but comply when they meet the vice-principal, who makes my mental image of Annie Wilkes from Misery look normal. They meet their classmates, including a girl named Millie and an art-loving boy named Ted. They hear about rumors such as students going into the bush-lands outside of the school and “vanishing without a trace”. By the end of the volume a séance will have gone wrong, a student’s body will be found, and the twins start sharing dreams involving women in Victorian dresses and bleeding trees. Are you skeptical? I was when I heard of this manga and saw it in Barnes and Noble. But surely there had to be a Tokyopop American manga that was good, right? All it needed was not only an original and properly executed story but also excellent artwork. Excellent artwork was found in abundance, but any good stories had been lost in the bush-lands that this manga inhabits. Then we get Queenie-chan, who should have a better nickname, but like Monkey Punch will be known by that pseudonym forever in the manga community. She nails the great artwork and, even better, a story worth reading! And it’s not just an unoriginal story that’s executed well like Girl Got Game (opinion based on Kevin’s review), but it’s an original story for manga! It’s her story, and she makes it clear that she’s only telling the story, not making a commercial franchise. Queenie-chan must continue to write manga, as she excels in the medium and in the genres of Gothic and Horror.

What makes the story good besides the execution? The characters, of course! Amber and Jeanie do seem to be complete opposites, but they don’t get on each other’s nerves. You’d think that there would be more pillow fighting and angry words. But they share a maturity that rarely develops among teenagers. Future books will develop their personalities more. Their classmates have their peculiarities that make them interesting. Considering that this is a school where students supposedly vanish, their fascination with the occult seems too creepy and coincidental. But they have their reasons. I wonder why Amber and Jeanie can’t stay with their parents, but the first volume doesn’t talk about that at all. I’ve already mentioned that the artwork is great, so I guess all you need to know is what makes it great. For one thing, Queenie-chan draws manga so that you can’t even tell if it’s Japanese or not. For another, she had original character designs and awesome backgrounds. But I think that she is taming herself too much when it comes to gothic images. I mentioned that a student’s body was found. I’m not going to spoil it completely, but what I will say is that the student’s eyes were closed when they should’ve been open and she looked peaceful for a dead body. Maybe it was supposed to invoke shock, but I didn’t feel any. Oh well. At least parents don’t have to worry too much about this imagery. And there is no nudity, which is usually present in all the gothic and horror mangas that I have read. For once we have a manga artist who knows that bath scenes are not always necessary and may distract from the main point. The same is with violence: it’s only implied. No one wears revealing or tight outfits either. There is some axe imagery, but not much.

The last thing I think I should tell you is that this story isn’t funny. Again, that’s peculiar compared to other gothic and horror mangas that have humor to balance out the scary parts. But comedy fans will not laugh at Jeanie’s fluttering gestures, as they are minimal and not meant to be funny. If there is an humor to be found, it’s in a short story at the very end of the book that has some dark humor in it. In fact, that’s the best thing I liked about the preparation: Queenie-chan had several pages to talk about the origins of her horror and include a short story that reflected the mood of the main plot. She didn’t write it, I think, but it was still pretty good although that art was amateurish compared to hers. So what’s my verdict? Buy the first volume the next time you go to your local bookstore or comic book shop! If the other volumes aren’t good, then at least we have the first one to read. Not many people can write a good horror manga and make it original. But Tokyopop has a hit on their hands. They better not lose this author and artist. They say to write about what you know, and she definitely does that by writing about the Australian bush-lands.

- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi - -