Jun 10, 2022
This is a decent one-volume manga, and it seems another volume was planned, but it wasn't meant to be—nevertheless, it closes in a relatively satisfactory manner, and it stands on its own. If only more of the OVAs of the 1990s could have ended as gracefully.
Tengoku ni Musubu Koi has eroguro elements, and the freakshow aspect certainly brings to mind works like Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freakshow from Suehiro Maruo, or other such works, but this one is somewhat more grounded in realism and not as grotesque—though it has the occasional startling image, and an escalation into a massacre by the end.
The synopsis is
...
quite threadbare, so this begins with 8-year-old (I think) conjoined twins—one female, the other male. For anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of biology, this isn't possible, so it appears to have been chosen for symbolic purposes or even aesthetic ones.
Nijihiko is the male-half, and the female-half, Nonoko has been asleep ever since birth—in another sillybillyism, this would mean Nonoko missed a critical period of childhood development, yet she is quite intelligent and normal after she wakes up and goes through her baby-mode phase.
As can be seen from the cover, the art is wonderful, and its chock full of beautiful scenery and set-pieces—the slice of lifeish segments being done away by the fantastical depiction of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake.
From there, the twins wander from place to place, and eventually end up with a freak show and we cut to four years later. They're a motley bunch, though not as memorable as the aforementioned freaks of Maruo's work, but these ones are a bit more sympathetic and human. The characters remain very simple. A few archetypes here and there, many of them not being much more than a stylized design with a one-liner or two. The twins are the only ones with much development or a presence, and they probably would have become much stronger characters if we had a continuation, but none of the other characters are given much of an opportunity to shine other than being an eventual backstory for the twins.
There's an undercurrent of discrimination, whether it's from urbanites or country people, as is common with freakshow period pieces. Especially with the main characters, as I assume conjoined twins may not have been very well-known, and those who were in the know might have been a little perplexed by the two mains being a true freak of nature (male/female conjoined twins not being possible). You know, the typical, with irate sickle-wielding townspeople asking if the characters are Korean; an especially negative portrayal of rural people; hierarchies of discrimination: the discriminated discriminating against others who are discriminated against, which is actually kind of novel in stories handling discrimination, as they are usually so focused on the discriminated against the non-discriminated or other binaries.
It's relatively superficial, but it's handled with more poetic imagery here, and not as cringe-inducing as what you would get from the West. I still believe it to be relatively condescending much of the time—coming from the mind of an urbanite artist who probably went to a fancy art school—and there is a reason that those of a similar nature attract, and not their opposites or dissimilars. These themes are pretty much expected to be explored with this subject matter, but it definitely smacks of utopianism and a quixotic war against nature in some of the thematics.
I'm frankly not convinced the conflict at the end was the best direction to go in, and the dramatic "EVERYONE DIES BECAUSE OF THE BARBARITY OF A FEW RANDOM DEGENERATES" is a bit overdone. The ending sequence is as silly and haphazard as it is gruesome. They weave the discrimination theme back into the hysterical final frame, even though the action of the thugs has more to do with the troupe being an easy mark than discrimination in the first place, so it's very corny and unsophisticated messaging.
This is an enjoyable period piece with great art—both scenery and character design. Fantastic attention to detail, and very creative framing and bold composition for even the most ugly of scenes—for example, the slaughter of barn animals by a cripple has such elaborate composition, and the artist has a real knack for displaying the devastation of an earthquake and the squalor of the most bleak of surroundings. It's a shame there wasn't a sequel, and the twins had a lot of potential.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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