Rocket Bomber - article - Manga Moveable Feast - manga - Emma MMF: Daily Diary - vol. 2

Emma, vol. 2
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX

200 (190) pages.
Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Vintage: 2003. US edition Dec. 2006.
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Editor: Jim Chadwick

Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Suggestive Situations”
isbn 978-1401211332

##

Premise: A comic that reads almost like a BBC/Masterpiece Theater historical drama — a young Victorian gentleman (wealthy, but not aristocratic) falls for an almost-perfect maid, who also falls for him in her own shy, halting way, but since the two are British and this is Victorian England, nothing really juicy happens.

##

Review:

After watching the anime [which stretches the first volume (and the first chapter of this volume) to fill almost the whole of it’s first season] I’d forgotten how quickly the series turns dark.

Chapter 8, the opener here, is marvellous. Not only is there the actual first date between William and Emma — with a least a kiss shared (it’s hawt; Emma takes off her glasses) and you can infer as much as you want but only a kiss is depicted — but oh, what a date: The Crystal Palace! The flora, fauna, artefacts and spoils that only a global empire can collect, and all the architectural and historical detail an obsessive manga-ka can muster… I want to scan and post all of it.

Instead, I’ll just tease you with a single panel.

More introductions in this volume as well; it turns out William has a number of siblings not previously revealed, and they all manage to come home at about the same time the plot takes a turn away from easy romance.

[I also just really like that panel, don’t mind me]

Without spoiling too much, Emma faces a major change in her circumstances, and this means also that her relationship with William, already ephemeral and possible in it’s own way only so long as the two (and the select few around them) were able to delude themselves, must also come to an end.

A lot of drama builds around that. Emma comes to terms much more quickly, perhaps, though she also has to deal with grief and the prospect of being truly alone. It’s hard to pick just one chapter from this volume as most important, since each chapter piles it on, upping the stakes and expanding on the commentary on the differences between Victorian classes. Instead of picking the easy one (chapter 13) I’m going to pick two and juxtapose them:

In chapter 11, “Eleanor at the Banquet”, William concedes in part to his father’s wishes and escorts young Eleanor, his prospective fiancée, to a society dinner party. Eleanor is obviously smitten, and Mori takes pains (and about 17 pages) to show that the two actually do share some chemistry; if it weren’t for a chance meeting with a certain maid, this would be an entirely different romance story, quite suitable for a number of Harlequin romance pulps. Still, Eleanor is a débutante to high society, and her ‘troubles’ and ‘travails’ are merely cute.

In chapter 13, “Farewell Emma (Part II)”, William receives the tragic story of Emma’s childhood, second-hand, related to him by Al — a neighborhood handyman and an old friend of Kelly Stowner, Emma’s employer — and the glitz and excess of the banquet is starkly contrasted by the prospects an unwanted orphan faced in Dickensian London. This is a less-than-subtle jab at the world William comes from, and the banquet he so recently attended. The chapter also serves as an interlude in a long series of missed meetings: for the last half of the book, William and Emma attempt to meet each other, but never make the connection. Emma’s self-doubt slowly crystalized into a resolve to leave London, and abandon William; in parallel William’s search for Emma escalates into an almost frantic, breathless pursuit.

The cliff-hanger this volume is William just missing Emma as her train leaves King’s Cross Station. (with an excuse for more architecture, and a really nice two-page spread.)

[go ahead, compare Mori’s art to historical photographs and illos. Dare you.]

Click here for the archive of all Emma Manga Moveable Feast links