Dusk Story - Tasogare Monogatari by TONO
Genre: Supernatural
Josei
Length: 2 Volumes –
13 Chapters
 |
| Art and story (c) TONO |
Art has a floating
and ephemeral quality that I found so intriguing I looked up the
author to find a manga to read. Its a bit of an older style of art,
but I highly enjoy this particular type of esthetic. The color
illustrations were very beautiful to look at, and the art is very
unique. Faces are wide eyed and closed lipped, and the bodies are
thin limbed. The hair is very expressive, floating along with the
clothes to make very beautiful art. The backgrounds were extremely
sparse, but not really distractingly so. Clothes weren't very
detailed, either, actually the lack of detail is a bit of draw for
the flowing art but it can easily pass into looking amateur. Faces
could be a little hard to read, though, which happens to be the one
thing I took offense to in this sketchy type of art.
Takt can see ghosts,
illusions, and memories of people when they are strong enough and
though he tries to stay out of the way of many of them its hard to
ignore things that pull at him so tightly. Living a life filled with
other people's tragedies, come into his world and have a taste...
When I found a
random cover of manga by this mangaka, I had to look her up and read
something by her, though I deliberately picked the oldest one I could
find so that I could see the core of her art before looking at newer
manga and I don't think the art disappointed me at all. I did wish
though, that the chapters of this manga hadn't been so choppy, they
were only nineteen pages each (typical length for weekly published
manga) but each one is it's own contained story so there were a few
bits that aren't really explained. Still, I found it highly enjoyable
and I would definitely find another manga by this mangaka to read
just on the art alone. The plots where interesting, too, and varied
even though they all revolve around a person who can see ghosts which
is an old, OLD plot hook, but Dusk Story still managed some
interesting new takes on the trope. Takt is mysterious even to the
reader until you get further into the story, slowly developing as
your understanding of his world does. Though this also adds to the
tragedies of the manga, and it can be down right depressing at times.
The ending is abrupt though, just like the rest of the story. I also
think that the 'josei' genre is purely just because of the magazine
it was originally published in because there's no romance in it to
label it so. The format of the chapters is really the only reason I
did not fully savor this.
4/5 I could see reading this again and enjoying it just as much.
And, because I was
curious about this author:
Roe by TONO
Genre: Josei Comedy
Length: One Chapter
– 10 Pages
Art is much more
polished from the previous (no surprise, it being something like
fifteen years after Dusk Story) the facial expressions and
body movements are clear and easy to understand, and the clothes are
detailed much better and contour to the bodies they hang from. It has
that same floaty and fantasy feel but in a much more polished
setting. The backgrounds are still lacking, though.
A tale of two
friends. One friend is always eating piles of food and able to afford
everything she wants, while the other is broke and, despite always
being on a diet, fat. So when the poor friend is invited to work like
the other so she, too, can be skinny and rich, she goes to her
friends house to see exactly what is up.
Silliness, TONO
clearly likes to be very silly. Its a wonder these two women are
friends but it makes for a tale of jealousy and comedy that you
probably won't see coming. Definitely not a waste of my time, I'll
remember it forever.
5/5 The art is even better than before!
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