Manga: Nijigahara Holograph

[Apraxhren]

Nijigahara (Rainbow Field, a location within the manga) is a heavy book. Its thick black cover and roughly 300-page girth are a sign of things to come: this is a black, bleak story, complicated and convoluted. It is a story that you can read again and again, and notice new things each time. It is a story that you need to read again and again to puzzle together. It is a story heavy with symbolism and maddeningly intricate.

Suzuki is a troubled boy. He's lived with uncaring foster parents for most of his life, alienated from the other kids at his school, owner of a cynical, unhappy mentality. Komatsuzaki is a violent, unpredictable bully whose head trauma causes him to act in mysterious, inexplicable ways. Arakawa is a no-nonsense, normal girl who pines after Komatsuzaki but can never have him. A teacher with just one working eye. A mother who committed suicide. A daughter in an endless coma. Attempted rapes, murders, extortion, sexual deviance, and a freakish explosion in the butterfly population. All of these elements are whirled together in a story spanning 10 years, a tale of blackness, pain and apocalypse. And maybe just a bit of hope and redemption. It's a spiritual cross between the misanthropic suburban malevolence of Kyoko Okazaki's Rivers Edge and the eerie mysticality of Donnie Darko.

From: http://www.mangascreener.com/



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This is a long read at 292 pages, and like it says you really need to read it more than once, which I'm not sure is such a good thing. It is an interesting read at the least, but beyond that is debatable.

[animus]

I just read the whole thing, and I'm confused to all hell. I don't feel like reading it again due to it's massive size, but can anyone clear up a few things?














Spoilers:

1. Who was that old guy at the end?
2. Did Suzuki actually rape Arie?
3. What exactly is Arie? Are Suzuki and her related?
















Just quesitons off the top of my head. There's a ton more, but if anyone could provide info on what they can comprehend that'd be great.

[Apraxhren]

Spoilers!



1: The old man was God, or a representation of God. Page 32 says "I was in the hospital a while ago and God felt so bad about my pain that he brought me a present."
2. If you are talking about 262-266 I'd say no, it didn't seem to be forced sex.
3. part1: I'm pretty sure Arie is the messenger from God described on page 172. There are several things I feel that point to this other than pg172. Pages 273-277 where Arie's mother, who would also fit into the messenger from God according to the tale on 172, tells how she had the dream she was a butterfly who saw everything the happens and mentions hearing a voice that must of been God. Then on page 31 we see Suzuki talking to a butterfly which is presumably Arie, and when Suzuki asked "Are you God?" she responds "No but I have met him before." Finally, on page 263 when Arie is conscious again she says "I can see everything that happens in the world."
3. part2: Yes they seem to be siblings. page 247 we "hear" Suzuki say "he told me I was the son of his previous wife. Not his." Also on page 6 he again states that his father is of no relation to him. Support for them being siblings comes from page 265 when Arie specifically calls him "Big brother" and on pages 276-277 we see what looks like younger versions of Arie and Suzuki playing.

That is what I'm concluded so far at least, I can't say it is the truth so don't hold me accountable

[masamuneehs]

wow, this grabbed my attention. I read through the first three chapters, and I must say that this is a very awesome story. The art is beautiful and the story seems very complex and deep. It's confusing, but engrossing and the cutting between times is done quite nicely. I'm enjoying this immensely right now.

edit - lord almighty... i just could not get to sleep until I read the rest of this... I haven't cried in months... this story was just so beautiful, dark and twisted and depressing, but beautiful at the same time. it took me quite a while to figure out what was going on, and i sometimes got confused, but wow, just an amazing read. great find aprax. deep deep deep stuff. this one's a keeper.

[animus]

Spoilers!



1: The old man was God, or a representation of God. Page 32 says "I was in the hospital a while ago and God felt so bad about my pain that he brought me a present."
2. If you are talking about 262-266 I'd say no, it didn't seem to be forced sex.
3. part1: I'm pretty sure Arie is the messenger from God described on page 172. There are several things I feel that point to this other than pg172. Pages 273-277 where Arie's mother, who would also fit into the messenger from God according to the tale on 172, tells how she had the dream she was a butterfly who saw everything the happens and mentions hearing a voice that must of been God. Then on page 31 we see Suzuki talking to a butterfly which is presumably Arie, and when Suzuki asked "Are you God?" she responds "No but I have met him before." Finally, on page 263 when Arie is conscious again she says "I can see everything that happens in the world."
3. part2: Yes they seem to be siblings. page 247 we "hear" Suzuki say "he told me I was the son of his previous wife. Not his." Also on page 6 he again states that his father is of no relation to him. Support for them being siblings comes from page 265 when Arie specifically calls him "Big brother" and on pages 276-277 we see what looks like younger versions of Arie and Suzuki playing.

That is what I'm concluded so far at least, I can't say it is the truth so don't hold me accountable

Hm, by question 2 i meant 264-266. Because on 266 he's attacking her. But on 270 she seems completely normal.

[Apraxhren]

Hm, by question 2 i meant 264-266. Because on 266 he's attacking her. But on 270 she seems completely normal.

Yea that part I still don't get. To me it seems something got triggered in him when she said "I can hear mommy's voice. Big brother." He then appears to kill her, and mumbles "M, Mom..." and runs away. Then the whole butterfly thing happens and he is back in front of her...Is that last scene maybe in his mind?

[bukuwawa]

1. the old man was suzuki.

there are two times he appears. At the beginning, talking to adult suzuki, when he asks to be wheeled over to a crying child...

... who was suzuki crying as a child at the end. He then tells suzuki that he has the same first name as him, and takes off as a butterfly.

adult suzuki and kid suzuki also cross paths in the middle of the manga.


2. I don't think he really tried to rape Arie. I think seeing her sent him into kind of a state of shock and he freaked out. He's kneeling in front of her at the end of that sequence and she's not hurt. The reason seeing her shocked him is...

3. arie and suzuki are twins. You can see them for the first time on page 2.


That scene is the climax of the manga, and sort of the end of the story. We never see further into the future than that moment. Suzuki was depressed as a kid, and when the insane cafe owner (Higure-Brother) killed Suzuki's only real friend (Higure-Sister) in the fire when he was a kid, i think it more or less broke him, left a lot of violence and bile inside him. What happened when he eventually saw Arie as an adult was, i think, kind of a catharsis, all of that blackness pouring out and blowing away all at once. The only hint we have about what happened to him after that was the behavior of the old man with his younger selves. He seemed like a pretty good old man to me. So in that sense, I think there is a happy ending to the story.

This manga is very complex, stephen joked with me about making an annotated version with all our thoughts about it, maybe I will sometime. There's so much surrounding the other main characters too, Komatsuzaki, Arakawa, the teacher Sakaki.

I'm really glad to see people discussing it!

[masamuneehs]

really? kudos to you sir.

you know, i noticed that scene, when the two Suzukis were in the same shot... That one really confused me, because I just had no idea if it really was the two of them, if the child Suzuki was a memory that adult one was seeing (and so we see too). That makes me look at the story from a very different perspective... so, in a way, Suzuki is God?

any other similar manga you might recommend? has that mangaka produced anything else?

[Apraxhren]

1. the old man was suzuki.

Hrm, I was thinking that might be the case but I couldn't find any evidence that it was true beside the "Thats my name too". The whole multiple Suzuki existing was hinted at when as a child they show the scene on the bridge where he runs by and a man says "Hey you" then later when Suzuki comes back to the town the same scene happens again but with him being the man. Am I missing something else that would connect the multiple existences? Also does that mean he gave the box to an old version of himself who then gives it to the younger version etc...?

3. arie and suzuki are twins. You can see them for the first time on page 2.

Hrm, the first time I read it I thought that image was on Suzuki and Komatsuzaki since they look quite similar but once again nothing else points to it being true.

Something else I've been thinking about, Komatsuzaki, at first seemed to be eating butterflies throughout the story. However the next time I saw that they were actually coming out of his month, and at the one point in the hospital it actually seemed to possess him as he collapses after it exits. I've been wondering what is up with that.

Sadly there is such little discussion on this manga with all of it's little details.

Edit: Masa if you go to the magnascreener website the post on the frontpage by Stephenpaul lists the other ones he has done. Here's a ripoff of it:
What a wonderful world (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=5836)
City of Light (Doesn't seem to be available)
Solanin (http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=2833)

[bukuwawa]

Masa: Kotonoha is working on What a Wonderful World and City of Light, and Entropy is working on Solanin, but none of those stories are structured like this one is. It's pretty unique in the world of (translated) manga, as far as I know. As for other recommendations, my other favorite manga was National Quiz, also by mangascreener. We're going to do a couple more of that artists projects in the near future.

Aprax: No, you've more or less pointed out everything. The connection doesn't all fall into place until the last line of the manga.

old man gives box to boy -> boy gives box to adult -> adult presumably turns into old man.
I'm not absolutely sure what the box symbolizes. My instinct is that it's some part of Suzuki himself, perhaps his hope or will.

After Komatsuzaki is fed to the tunnel, he seems to be in a sort of thrall/servant relationship with the (monster/suzuki's mother). He eventually seems to be rewarded when his work is done with a life with Arakawa, but there is some time ambiguity there too. Look closely at page 210, and pay attention to the reflection Arakawa sees.

[Apraxhren]

Look closely at page 210, and pay attention to the reflection Arakawa sees.

Ah, thanks. I've seen that page a couple of times and didn't notice she was also on the other side of the glass. I'm going to need to read this a 3rd time with the stuff you have shared and try to find some more meaning. I have something with Komatsuzaki I want to check but I need to get some sleep.

[bukuwawa]

for a really in-depth set of questions (and my feeble attempts to answer some of them), see this thread.