by Moto Hagio
translation by Matt Thorn
Moto Hagio is one of those writers I've been slowly working my way through, but as is so often the case, much more slowly than intended. I read volume 1 of Otherworld Barbara back in December 2017... I got to the second and final volume exactly six years later!
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Collection published: 2017 Contents originally published: 2003 Read: December 2023 |
This is definitely to the book's detriment. Otherworld Barbara is one long, complicated story, about a girl dreaming of an imaginary island in the future, scientists studying life on Mars, adoptees and surrogates swapped with one another, cannibalism, people who dive into dreams, research into immortality, the coming of a genocide, and much more, and all I had to go on was a couple recap pages in the front and my vague memories of the first book. If I was smart, I would have read this right after volume 1!
Still, I enjoyed this a lot, even when I wasn't totally sure what was happening. There's a lot of cool science fiction concepts here, and Hagio actually manages to pull them all together in a coherent way. On top of that, this book shows her mastery of the grammar and rhythm of the comics form, with some really emotional beats forming around the reveals here. I particularly liked the stuff about fatherhood, and the twists at the end are surprisingly good. Maybe someday I should reread the whole story in one go and then actually understand it, but for now I will focus on the Moto Hagio I haven't read yet. The Poe Clan here I come... in probably six more years!
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