Setona Mizushiro

After School Nightmare is a ten-volume manga series by Setona Mizushiro. I first came across the series while working my way through one of my local library's manga collection which, at the time, was largely shelved alphabetically by title. So, it didn't take me too long to encounter After School Nightmare. I borrowed and read the first few volumes and on the strength of those alone decided to track down and purchase the entire series which had sadly gone out of print. The manga's dark, show more horror-tinged psychological drama and its themes exploring gender and sexuality immediately appealed to me; the series had the potential to be both disconcerting and compelling. After School Nightmare, Volume 1 was originally published in Japan in 2004. The English-language edition of the volume was released in 2006 by the now defunct Go! Comi. After School Nightmare has generally been critically well-received in English, even earning an Eisner Award nomination for Best U.S. Edition of International Material among other honors.

Mashiro Ichijo is an androgynously attractive and well-liked you man, but he's hiding a secret from his classmates--his body is neither entirely male nor entirely female. This has brought Mashiro some challenges in his life and as a result of his physical condition he struggles with his personal identity and gender. Just how much he struggles is made abundantly clear when Mashiro is requested to join a special after-school class which must be completed in order for him to graduate. In it the students must literally live out their nightmares where they are forced to face their darkest fears and bear witness to one another's deepest secrets. What's more is that they aren't there to offer comfort or support. Instead, circumstances encourage them to strike out against their fellow classmates. And even though what happens in the nightmares isn't to carry over into the real world, sharing such an intimate experience can't help but change the young people and how they see one another.

The circumstances surrounding the after-school classes are peculiar. Only the students invited to attend seem to be aware of it. The stairs leading down to the infirmary where the class is held in a basement that shouldn't exist disappears and reappears depending on the day. The teacher in charge isn't known by the school's other faculty. Students who "graduate" quietly go missing and are forgotten. All of these things and more add to the foreboding atmosphere of After School Nightmare and the feeling that something just isn't quite right about what is going on. The shared nightmares themselves are also ominously disconcerting. The imagery is frightening--a girl whose face and heart are gaping holes, disembodied hands and arms, a cruel knight in black armor--but in the end the students' psychological torment and distress may be even more troubling and gut-wrenching. The nightmares simply reveal the darkness and confusion that they already carry within themselves.

In the dreams, the students take on their true forms, representative of the issues, abuse, and trauma that they are dealing with. Many of them appear so distorted in the nightmares that its difficult to know their identities in the waking world. That's not the case for Mashiro who looks exactly the same except that, to his horror, he sometimes is wearing the girls' skirted school uniform in the dreams. This makes him easily identifiable and a target in the real world. He catches the attention of Kureha Fujishima, a young woman who is afraid of men but feels comfortable around Mashiro after learning his secret. And then there's Sou Mizuhashi who has a reputation for being a playboy and womanizer but who also seems to have taken an intense interest in Mashiro. Though somewhat conflicted over these developments in his relationships with his classmates, Mashiro largely welcomes the attention from Kureha and is understandably uncomfortable with Sou's aggressive advances towards him. As the first volume of After School Nightmare shows, reality can be just as terrifying if not more so than any nightmare.

Experiments in Manga show less

just finished it (started a few days ago but stayed up past midnight last night and then just finished during my break)

oh man, my eyes got watery when leo told alice that he had to propagate his seed NOW after she refused him when they started having sex. and then i did almost cry when alice started to walk through the city after she found out that Leo died and nobody had told her that he was going to die--gah! i'm doing it again as i'm writing now. i guess i'm just sentimental.

Mizushiro did show more a really great job of building it up and then paying it off. the reminiscences sequenced with the cityscapes and closeups were cinematic and evocative.

the pacing is just right and doesn't wallow too much in the mundane. show less

I haven't normally given a full run at reviews of manga. Normally, it's just been a little paragraph, and I haven't even really bothered posting them here. But this series is different. For something that I picked up because I kinda wanted a BL thing to try the last time I was in Japan, and I liked the cover, this story was really remarkable. It's the best BL thing that I've ever read, and in terms of the story and the reality of the characters, it's up there with the best manga I've ever show more read, period. And it's short and self-contained to boot, 2 volumes and your story is done. So what is the story, you ask? Well...

Ootomo Kyouichi is a salaryman in his late 20s. He's pretty good at work, but in his personal life, he just gets carried along by whatever comes his way - if someone's interested in him, he usually just gets swept along, and does as they want. Seeing as he's married, that can be problematic. He's approached at the beginning of the story by Imagase Wataru, an old college friend who's now working for a private investigation firm, and who's been commissioned by Ootomo's wife to look into whether Ootomo's had any affairs. Since he has, Imagase proposes a bargain. See, Imagase turns out to have been closeted back in college, but he had a huge crush on Ootomo the whole time when he was in school, and now that he has the chance, he can't pass up trying a little blackmail. Even if all he wants (for now) is a kiss.

Okay, so far, this sounds pretty normal for a BL series, and it's true, the first chapter is the weakest. But the story grows so much, and has all sorts of good hallmarks. It has two realistic - really realistic - lead characters, in a real-world setting, with the problems with being gay, and different people's reactions to that. It has female characters that are meant to be real, to be sympathetic, and to be real alternatives for Ootomo than Imagase, and that's a rarity. It has, yes, some graphic sex scenes, but they actually advance character development. That's right, they really are used to build up the characters, and they're there for a reason. I don't think I can come up with other titles that do that. And the author, Mizushiro, knows the story she wants to tell, has a good length for it (2 volumes really is enough), has great, great art, and fills the pages with nice blocking and good symbolism in the art.

The writing is just very good, as well, and complements the art really nicely. Seriously, she makes the most of the graphic format, and I don't want to sell the art short, but the writing... the character voices are so clear, and they sound like people I've met (actually, Imagase's voice in a lot of cases reminds me of me). The books take on a lot of questions: What if what you want is someone who just really cares about you and supports you... but the one who does that the most is the opposite sex from what you'd normally want? How do you deal with it when your emotions for someone twist who you thought you were out of shape? How do you work out what you want emotionally when you're a bit older, you're in your late 20s or early 30s, and you want to settle down? If you're not really gay, as a man, can your feelings for another man be as strong as a gay man's? And can your partner trust those feelings?

There's a lot more that I can say about this series, but what it comes down to is that I love it to bits. Seriously. It's got its really funny moments, and it's romantic and moving and just real. I love the characters so, so much, with all their flaws (and they are both pretty damn flawed people). If this was translated to English, I would be buying it for people already, but it hasn't... although you can probably find it if you look. It has been translated to French, and of course it's in Japanese, if you want it. And you do want it. Trust me. show less

I haven't normally given a full run at reviews of manga. Normally, it's just been a little paragraph, and I haven't even really bothered posting them here. But this series is different. For something that I picked up because I kinda wanted a BL thing to try the last time I was in Japan, and I liked the cover, this story was really remarkable. It's the best BL thing that I've ever read, and in terms of the story and the reality of the characters, it's up there with the best manga I've ever show more read, period. And it's short and self-contained to boot, 2 volumes and your story is done. So what is the story, you ask? Well...

Ootomo Kyouichi is a salaryman in his late 20s. He's pretty good at work, but in his personal life, he just gets carried along by whatever comes his way - if someone's interested in him, he usually just gets swept along, and does as they want. Seeing as he's married, that can be problematic. He's approached at the beginning of the story by Imagase Wataru, an old college friend who's now working for a private investigation firm, and who's been commissioned by Ootomo's wife to look into whether Ootomo's had any affairs. Since he has, Imagase proposes a bargain. See, Imagase turns out to have been closeted back in college, but he had a huge crush on Ootomo the whole time when he was in school, and now that he has the chance, he can't pass up trying a little blackmail. Even if all he wants (for now) is a kiss.

Okay, so far, this sounds pretty normal for a BL series, and it's true, the first chapter is the weakest. But the story grows so much, and has all sorts of good hallmarks. It has two realistic - really realistic - lead characters, in a real-world setting, with the problems with being gay, and different people's reactions to that. It has female characters that are meant to be real, to be sympathetic, and to be real alternatives for Ootomo than Imagase, and that's a rarity. It has, yes, some graphic sex scenes, but they actually advance character development. That's right, they really are used to build up the characters, and they're there for a reason. I don't think I can come up with other titles that do that. And the author, Mizushiro, knows the story she wants to tell, has a good length for it (2 volumes really is enough), has great, great art, and fills the pages with nice blocking and good symbolism in the art.

The writing is just very good, as well, and complements the art really nicely. Seriously, she makes the most of the graphic format, and I don't want to sell the art short, but the writing... the character voices are so clear, and they sound like people I've met (actually, Imagase's voice in a lot of cases reminds me of me). The books take on a lot of questions: What if what you want is someone who just really cares about you and supports you... but the one who does that the most is the opposite sex from what you'd normally want? How do you deal with it when your emotions for someone twist who you thought you were out of shape? How do you work out what you want emotionally when you're a bit older, you're in your late 20s or early 30s, and you want to settle down? If you're not really gay, as a man, can your feelings for another man be as strong as a gay man's? And can your partner trust those feelings?

There's a lot more that I can say about this series, but what it comes down to is that I love it to bits. Seriously. It's got its really funny moments, and it's romantic and moving and just real. I love the characters so, so much, with all their flaws (and they are both pretty damn flawed people). If this was translated to English, I would be buying it for people already, but it hasn't... although you can probably find it if you look. It has been translated to French, and of course it's in Japanese, if you want it. And you do want it. Trust me. show less