Apr 18, 2022
Sazan & Comet Girl made me feel like a kid again. Like I was watching an adventure movie with more imagination than I had, something I could then daydream about for years. It pulled me in the moment I started reading and kept me awake until I finished it.
How can you not get immersed with art like that? Every page is rendered with vibrant colors, and the author, Akase Yuriko, knows exactly how to use them. Not only is every panel full of beautiful contrasting tones, but it uses the right highlights and shadows to complete the ‘80s-style trippy vibes.
The art works well for characters,
...
emotions, and action, but most of all it brings the setting to life. It’s the kind of sci-fi that’s more aesthetic than hard speculation, but that’s a good thing even if it makes it fantasy at its core. We aren’t worried about how the technology works or the nitty gritty of how this galactic culture’s politics came to be. You can take it for granted that people here casually drop by Jupiter to visit a dive bar, work as planetary construction artisans, run away from space pirates captained by talking pigs, and swerve between planets on a space-motorbike. This works better in manga than in many other mediums. Rather than explain what exists, it can simply show it to us and have us accept it.
Many panels show space not as a dark void, but a canvas colored in bright nebulas and gas clouds. At the start of the story, our main character, Sazan, talks about how he doesn’t mind his blue collar job, because he gets to work in space. He understands that, at least in this universe, space isn’t lonely. It’s full of life and color.
Sazan is a simple character. He’s content with his ordinary life, but when he stumbles into something more, he silences his doubt embraces it with all of his heart. So when by pure coincidence, he runs into Mina, a hotshot space biker willing to give him a ride home, you understand exactly why he falls in love with her so fast. They both enjoy life.
Of course, it’s not that easy, as they get chased by Kidd, a space pirate captain and humanoid pig who’s intent on capturing Mina not for whatever mysterious value she has, but simply to prove himself as a great space pirate rather than a nobody.
That’s the start of the plot, but I think every reader can tell that it’s going to unfold into something greater. The surprise and entertainment comes not from the fact that it does, but the way it does. It’s a simple story at its core, with simple characters. But they work. The narrative is paced like a movie, and the characters have exactly as much as they need for that, with arcs and development that coincide perfectly with the scope and pace of what this story is capable of. Some manga need deeper, more nuanced characters in order to keep them interesting for hundreds of chapters. This one didn’t, and it understood that.
But that’s not to say they aren’t deep. Rather, the depth is in the simplicity. Mina is dangerous, and understands exactly why it’s not safe to let anyone be close to her. Sazan doesn’t care. He’s willing to let her belong. You’ve read stories like this before, but that doesn’t take away the value of this one.
That sums up this manga. It feels like a cliche. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, girl has to run away because the entire galaxy is chasing her, and boy refuses to give up on saving her. When I read something like this, I feel like there’s a thousand stories just like it. So cliche that there are countless variations on this, right? And yet I can’t think of a single one that I’ve actually read (at most, it’s a little like Castle in the Sky, and I think that comparison is favorable to both stories). And in a way, I enjoy it for that classic-feeling simplicity that many stories try to avoid.
Some stories are too concerned with being original and different, and fail to understand that certain tropes are commonly used because they work. The narrative of Sazan & Comet Girl isn’t really cliche, because it’s not derivative. It doesn’t feel like it’s copying a thousand things you’ve seen before and has nothing interesting to say. It’s saying something so fundamental to what we enjoy about stories that our brains mistake it for being cliche. The story has confidence in what it is. Rather than fear being cliche, it makes the rarer move and commits to a simple and powerful story.
The plot plays out with similar confidence. That’s where the simplicity is deceiving. Every step of the plot naturally leads into the next; everyone does the only thing that makes sense for them to do in the situation they’re put in, and it still builds to incredible climaxes. Every choice each character makes is consistent with their core motivations, from the turning points to the little moments.
It’s harder than it looks to write like that. The act of making it look so easy is one of the trickiest things an author has to do. To speak non-specifically in order to avoid spoiling, the way the climax of the story is given an audience feels like it would be contrived if it didn’t make perfect sense, and it gives the ending the triumphant dramatic weight that it deserved. Plot details are reincorporated, important twists are foreshadowed, and characters change and grow because they really would when put in those positions, not just because the plot structure obliged them to.
It feels like a story done correctly. Sometimes, that’s not a good thing. Sometimes writing a story completely by the book leads to it missing passion. Sazan & Comet Girl avoids this. It doesn’t feel like the author followed a screenwriting guide to construct a technically perfect story. It feels like she had an idea she cared about, and worked on it and edited it until it was ready.
It’s not a perfect manga. The action paneling is competent but lacks a certain punch and impact, and action makes up a lot of the story. And in general, as much as I praise it for what it did, I believe it could have done more. When you have almost nothing but praise to heap on a manga, it’s tricky to define what exactly is the difference between 8/10 good and 10/10 good. The best example I have is that this narrative, in theory, could have made me cry. And while it constantly made me smile, it didn’t get any tears out of me. Simply put, it could hit even harder.
Another issue like that is the ending. It ends well, don’t get me wrong, but there’s one decision I would have changed. Something that, in my opinion, would have hammered in the theme of Sazan accepting Mina for who she is even harder, instead of making it a bit too easy.
The fact that it could have been even better doesn’t make it any less impressive for what it is. I’m always happy when I find manga like this. They remind me that no matter how many things I read, there are always interesting authors outside the mainstream doing things like I’ve never quite seen before. In this case, what it does is be an 80s-style action adventure that commits to the nostalgia of that style so hard that it turns into something new. Something that could only come out of a present-day author looking back on what worked in the past and refining it.
And she may become mainstream in the future. Akase Yuriko’s style is so digestible and fun that I think we need to keep an eye on her. A decade from now, she might be at the top.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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