Not all manga features doe-eyed schoolgirls and spiky haired combatants. There’s proof in DARK METRO, a horror anthology series from Tokyopop. Both VOL. 1 and VOL. 2 work under the simple premise that Japan’s subway tunnels act as a gap between the worlds of the living and the dead. End of setup.
Acting vaguely as our host is Seiya, a supposedly dreamy looking young man (you know this because his hair falls over his eyes) who roams the tunnels, often saving souls, and is known alternately as The Conductor.
VOL. 1′s stories concern an actress who meets a zombie, a haunted nightclub that’s located underground (with a flesh-ripping scene straight outta HELLRAISER III), a new-on-the-job conductor who sees ghosts, and a boyfriend trying to dump the body of his suicide-committing girlfriend.
VOL. 2 offers more of the same — and more appearances by Seiya — as a waitress disappears into a handheld video game, a child’s ghost haunts the subway system, a man steals a cursed antique sword, and a kid can see spirits.
These stories rely more on shock than suspense, on gore more than horror, but are fun to read regardless. As with lots of manga, there are translation issues, with dialogue exchanges becoming as wooden as “There had to be someone on the roof of that train!” “It’s just hard to believe that someone was on the roof a moving train!”
Characters also say things along the lines of “!!,” “?!” and “…..,” but not all the quirks lie with Tokyo Calen’s writing. The art by Yoshiken is also imperfect, and the fault is his alone, with many panels having nothing but word balloons in them, as if faces are just too tough to draw.
Don’t get me wrong: I like DARK METRO and look forward to future volumes, if only for the sheer absurdity of it. For example, VOL. 2 ends with a few pages of a feature called “Dark Metro Four-Panel Theater,” comprised of short comic strips that read like non sequiturs, with “jokes” about homosexuality and wetting the bed. Ah, Japan. —Rod Lott
Related posts:
- Q&A with DARK DELICACIES’ Del Howison
- Dark Delicacies
- Dark Distortions
- Portraits in the Dark
- Four Dark Nights
