Tuesday, January 02, 2007

IC in a Sunflower

by Mitsukazu Mihara
Published in the U.S. by Tokyopop




Slugline: Another anthology of varyingly dark stories from the Gothic Lolita creator.

The costuming is not as elaborate as in volumes like RIP, which will be a disappointment to the costuming fans. The individual stories are up to par with Mihara's other works so far as dialog (good) and structure (good) and worldbuilding (quite good and efficient) but the characters are similar to others he's written and there is not really a unifying theme. Except maybe the "mature" elements like sex and murder, but those certainly aren't unique to this volume.

This still makes for good reading if you like stories with a dark side. There are some mild science fiction elements, but Mihara generally focuses on modern complications of old problems and the jaded modern people who run into them. Mihara is also one of the few manga writers who has both a fair volume of material published in the US and it is all of consistently good quality, so look for his name. I enjoy his gothic-modern writing, but I also hope to see him tackle other styles, someday.



- Miranda

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