Thursday, April 15, 2010

The World I Create

By Ayami Kazama
Published in the US by CMX Manga







Slugline: Believing is Seeing

This manga is about people that have the ability through magic lanterns to create illusionary environments that can encompass all of the senses.  These 'projectionists' share their school grounds with a more traditional high school so that they share many of the same problems of typical students except that their conflicts are not just over grades but over their special abilities.  A couple of students that have had trouble advancing  in their training end up creating worlds not for their teachers but for each other.  A student that is losing her projectionist ability has to decide what her last illusion will be and how she will keep her projectionist friends despite moving back to the ordinary school.  Two students first aggravate each other then help each other reach ever greater heights in their abilities.  A student is worried that he will lose his girlfriend if she pursues her projectionist abilities.  In all of these different stories characters from the others visit but the problem of each story remains their own to resolve.

This is an all ages title, and the conflicts in each story reflect that rating in that none of them are intense though they can be bittersweet and their relationships while having the beginnings of romance for the most part are innocent and sweet rather than hot and heavy. It is not much of a surprise to find out that at the heart of each story is the revelation, the showing of a truth. That ties in with the characters' projectionist abilities, because in most cases that truth can only be shown through those abilities. But this is one of those times were the all ages ratings holds back the title, because the stories could be so much more bold than they end up being. A less restrictive rating could have allowed higher and more varied stakes rather than leaving the reader with a sense of repetition and a mild disappointment that the manga was not more.



The World I Create is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga

-Ferdinand

3 comments:

SNES Games said...

This is very interesting, somehow it resemble the fairy tail anime. which has the four elements the fire, earth, water, and wind. Nice review, keep up

Prospero's Manga said...

Hrm, how do see the connection to the four elements? Do you think there is a subtle link to the individual themes of each story in the volume?

Alexander said...

He's a spammer. Check his link.