Translucent 1 by Kazuhiro OKAMOTO
This was a manga that I discovered, purely by accident, while browsing through the local library. They had all three volumes that have been released by Dark Horse, but I only picked up the first one since I wasn’t sure if it would be to my liking or not. Quickly flipping through the pages, I wasn’t necessarily blown away by the art, but hey, no harm in trying.
Translucent is the story of Shizuka SHIROYAMA, a girl who’s afflicted with the translucent syndrome. Essentially, parts of her body become translucent (hence the title) and eventually transparent, but otherwise, she’s perfectly healthy. It seems that the transparency may become permanent, but for the meantime, Shizuka only becomes totally transparent at a certain time during the month.
This feel and tone of this series reminds me so much of Beck, in that it’s about ‘normal’ people just trying to live their lives. Shizuka is a regular student, with regular parents, and a regular boyfriend in Mamoru. The things that happen in the first volume of the manga, as well, encompass the ordinary goings-on in the life of an average Japanese girl. There’s your requisite school festival, new transfer student, etc., etc. Where I think Translucent excels in is being sweet without being too overdramatic about it. The characters are having problems, sure, but the mangaka doesn’t let them brood and ponder their emo state for pages and pages. As much as I hate going into the genre debate again, this is exactly how one can differentiate between a series that’s targeted for men vs. one that’s targeted for women. It’s fairly obvious from the pacing and the action that Translucent, despite being a high-school age drama/romance, didn’t have women as its primary audience.
Nonetheless, this female certainly enjoyed it. If you like your high-school drama with a heavier pinch of reality, definitely give this series a whirl.
September 16th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
I read a review for this over at UK-A and actually thought it would really appeal to me. The symbolism of becoming literally invisible touches on a lot of teen issues but if it avoids being ‘emo’ so much the better. TBH I don’t try to think of the target readership – if it has a good story and characters the idea of it being ‘girly’ doesn’t occur to me. I guess Kare Kano is a good example of this (i.e. it’s fantastic, even to a male reader such as me) but I think I’ll take the plunge with this too.
September 17th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Martin – I think if you enjoyed Kare Kano, Translucent will also be to your taste. I even feel that the characters in this series are more likeable. Looking forward to reading your post if you get to reviewing this series.