Witches: The Complete Collection (Omnibus)
Staff Reviews
In my undergraduate studies as a comics major, fan-translations of Daisuke Igarashi's short stories were passed around surreptitiously in PDF format by students and professors alike. "This," the pages seemed to say to us sophomore otaku, "is what manga is truly capable of." Imagine my joy when Seven Seas announced an omnibus edition of his Witches stories!
This is not Disney magic -- this is cunning magic, chthonic magic, magic that connects and fills all things, as beautiful, terrible, and inscrutable as the universe itself. These seven stories take us from the Amazon to the Alps to rural Japan, and though many are grounded in (loosely interpreted) real-world spiritual traditions, Igarashi never loses focus on the witch as bridge between the human and the cosmic. His taste for striking, dreamlike imagery (occasionally veering into horror that would make Junji Ito jump) is at home here, especially during the memorable splash pages and spreads. Kathryn Henzler's translation is first-class as well, rendering the frequently abstract, metaphor-laden dialogue with poetic grace. She faithfully differentiates the book's numerous settings with varied registers, peppering dialogue of present-day schoolchildren with colloquialisms like "sus."
It's a dark joy to read the work of such a master in print at last. Right from the opening title spread, rendered painstakingly in the style of an illuminated manuscript, Witches seizes you with its uncanny beauty.
Description
An omnibus of award-winning interwoven tales of witchcraft from the critically acclaimed creator of Children of the Sea.
On a visit to a city in the far west of Asia, a British girl named Nicola falls in love. The object of her affection is Mimar, a man who works at the city's bazaar--yet despite her attempts, he turns her down. Upon returning home to England, the ache of her unrequited love festers. After years spent obtaining wealth, fame, and the Secret of the World, Nicola returns to the bazaar to exact her deadly revenge upon Mimar and those he holds dearest.
This story is one of many in this haunting collection that features tales of witches and dark magic set around the globe and in outer space. Winner of the Excellence Prize at the 2004 Japan Media Arts Festival, Witches is written and illustrated by Daisuke Igarashi, the critically acclaimed author of Children of the Sea.
