Attention-grabbing Alive Spins a Wild Web Downward

Kudos to Del Rey. Their brand-new title, Alive: The Final Evolution, has received attention from the new (and surprisingly mature) bi-monthly OtakuUSA, as well as fanboy/girl must-read NewTypeUSA and the mainstream Entertainment Weekly (scan in yesterday's post).

So does Alive live up to the hype?

As a fan of mature manga, Alive delivers a well-put-together, if maybe not completely original, first exciting volume. (OK, some of us are a little depressed after the inevitable end of Death Note. Harry Potter isn't the only huge series to end recently.)

High-school student, Taisuke Kano is spun into the middle of a X-Files type case of national, and international, proportions. We've seen that before. (A lot.) But Tadashi Kawashima's new story takes things to a satisfying-level...which actually comes in one frame, which I will explain at the end of this review.

Kano-kun is a Tokyo high-schooler who can't help but butt in when the smaller Hirose-kun is hazed and harassed for money on the way to school by older students at the train station. Kano-kun is hardly the dramatic hero, (he is squished in the train doors before he makes his attempt to scatter the bullying baddies). His efforts, three-degrees shy of the title of heroic, are soon forgotten as Tokyo (and Japan, and other parts of the world) experiences a rash of suicides. These are on the epic level (at least 100,000 around the world) and has put the media and authorities on full alert. But as quickly as they started, the suicides suddenly stop. But what we find is that at Kano-kun's school the problem isn't only suicide, but is of mass-murder. And the tiny Hirose-kun has been accused of a slaughter that isn't logically possible.

The first volume of Alive has received a lot of deserved attention. Sadly, I feel that in this time in America conspiracy-type stories are really easy to read. The "high-schooler is the one to save the world" theme has been done time and time again, to the point that I forget the main character is a teenager, but in this case the main character may be linked to the reason people are killing themselves (duh), and may have discovered some secrets on his own. I hope we get a little more insight soon, because "Death Note" fans are looking for something to fill their free-time.

What I want you to read is a sequence from page 36 to page 40 which takes only seconds to scan (little dialogue) but might be one of the best laid-out story elements in recent memory. Without saying too much, to have our dorky hero comment that he was "so jealous" when one of the victims of this "suicide virus" planted her body in front of him with a smile on her face gave me goose-bumps in its blunt subtlety. (This is the awesome frame I hinted at above.) So is Kano-kun infected? This is the question...

Things get a little weird, but we do get some hints into the situation via a tongue-waggling psycho who arrives half-way through the first volume.

And we've seen this story before. The Japanese cultural imparative of mass suicide isn't anything new, and the fact that the main dude is a high-schooler feels par-for-the-course...yet Alive carries itself at a healthy and non-ironic pace which makes me long for some more answers and story in Volume 2.

Alive is a familiar but very likable joyride into some dark, deep areas of society. I can't help be be reminded of "Suicide Circle" (aka "Suicide Club") which is a J-horror B-movie that dabbles in the same topics. (Are Japanese high-school rooftops really that free-reign?) However, Alive focuses on it's title group: those that are alive. And we get some clues that things are going to get worse before they get better.

The typical-looking cover doesn't quite hint into the depth that this new title carries. The subtitle "The New Evolution" feels a little more epic than necessary, but in-between is a potentially fantastic new story for goth-manga readers and those looking for something mentally creepy, which often sticks with you longer than the graphic stuff. Volume 1 is on shelves now.