Astral Project 3

marginal / Syuji Takeya – CMX – 2009 – 4 volumes

Forgive me, for I have sinned.  I was reading this when I wrote up my Midterm Report Card recommendations for Manga Recon, but I decided to hold off on reading the whole thing until the fourth volume came out.  Then I didn’t get the fourth volume for a long time, which is terrible because this series is mind-blowing amazing.  So I’m going to rectify this oversight right now and give the most robust recommendation I can muster.

Now, there’s a lot of existential and philosophical talk floating around this series.  Normally, this would turn me off in a big way, especially since I normally have a lot of problems following this type of thinking in a manga (usually because it’s not handled well, but also because nine times out of ten I prefer shutting my brain off when I read comics).  I’ve heard a few people mention they were turned off by this aspect of the series, and I completely understand that.  It’s got my ear, though, and I love where it’s going with its themes.  I can’t get over how clearly and easily a lot of the heavy stuff is being conveyed, too.

What are the themes at this point?  Well, the theory put forth for this period of heavy astral projection is that humans are fundamentally flawed and broken at this stage of their evolution.  They’ve come up with alternate forms of communication, effectively shutting them off from the most necessary form, that of the face-to-face conversation.  There’s also the fact that the first worldwide religion, television, is essentially worse for humanity than anything that has come before.  It’s a depressing time, and people are escaping.  The two astral projections without human bodies theorize that those two conditions will destroy humanity.

The book introduces its rather heavy point with a conversation of rites of passage, saying that one of the problems is that modern society lacks such a thing.  They go on to state that Japanese otaku culture is the most socially broken and spiritually robust of the Earth’s inhabitants, and it got this way by being neutralized by and following the example of the United States.  Bascially, it’s the bad social practices and policies of the US that will kill civilization.  I know it’ll come back around to this point in the final volume, and I must say, I absolutely need to see the US destroy humanity.

There are other things going on aside from this conversation, however, which is another huge saving grace for the series.  Masahiko falls in love for the first time in his life, finally courting Misa on the ground.  Their relationship blossoms in an understated way, and Masahiko begins opening himself up to her, which causes him to reflect on himself.  We also meet Misa’s mother and Zampano’s wife, and she gets drawn up into a rather major story event by the end of the volume.  Interestingly, the story event was related more to the characters than to the plot.

I love the character development in this series an awful lot, too.  Admittedly, one of the story’s weaknesses seems to be that the original focus, what happened to Masahiko’s sister Asami, continually falls by the wayside, but it never disappears completely.  I think this is pretty intentional, however, since the story is largely about Masahiko exploring himself, and coming to terms with the loss of his sister, whether through death or because she projected too hard, is a part of that.

The story also addresses the subject of the astral projections and what happens after death.

Awesome, awesome stuff.  And very unique, to be sure.