Short story anthology manga are a favorite of mine, particularly when they interweave characters of the stories, but also when they don’t. All My Darling Daughters and Erica Sakurazawa’s collections are among my favorites, and I had high hopes that Monokuro Kinderbook would be quickly joining those ranks.
Clearly written for women and for those who want an alternative/experimental art-style, Kinderbook has many outstanding characteristics, but also many flaws.
The style of storytelling is succinct, pulling in a range of emotions in just a few short pages. The stories also allow the reader to draw her own conclusions as to their meanings as well. Though the stories all tie into concepts of love, they tackel very different aspects of it from old love, new love, jealousy, agape, and obsession. Beyond love, other topics are touched upon, including the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 and how that affected the psyches of those living as far from ground zero as Japan.
Strong as it was, Kinderbooks flaws were nearly as numerous. Takahama’s drawings often went beyond “experimental” to just plain sloppy. It was almost impossible to tell which character was speaking when the details of the outfit changed from image to image, and facial features were blurred to the point that a man and woman talking looked nearly identical. This also made it a bit hard to follow the story. I could guess the point she was getting across, but since I might have confused a character, maybe I got it completely wrong. Also, I’m not sure if it’s the fault of the translator or the fault of the artist, but the dialogue was often really choppy and difficult to read. I’m not sure if Takahama just writes that way, or if the translator was going for too literal of a translation. Plus, the speech bubbles seemed to be inconsistent. Sometimes you read them one way, another time they had to be read in a different order for the discussion to make any sense. This made reading the volume a little confusing and tedious.
Overall, I want to like Monokuro Kinderbook more than I actually did. I like the topics that were tackled and the stories told, but the art was too off-putting and broke up the overall flow of the story. It really can’t be recommend for anyone but those who prefer the alternative/experimental to the mainstream. And even then, it might not rank as high as other manga that fall into the same categories. Still, I did like it, and I am glad I read it. It just didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
