Author: IMA Ichiko
Imprint: Chara ComicsC
Publisher: Tokuma shoten
ISBN4-19-960261-5
Reviewed by Jeanne
'All I ever draw', Ima Ichiko moans in the atogaki to this volume, 'is BL and Horror, BL and Horror.' This is true. The BL is mild stuff that appears in mild magazines like Chara, and is distinguished by an attention to chracterization rather than sex. Adult Problem, A Few Steps from Paradise, Where Have All the Daddy-long-legs Goooone? (defensively: well, that *is* what Ashinaga ojisan-tachi no Yukue means, moreorless.) The horror is the long-running and deservedly famous Hyakki Yakou-shou, Selections from 100 Night-travelling Spooks/ Demons/ Ghosts/ Odd things, distinguished by its attention to both characterization and weird events.
I suppose if I'd actually read the title of Strange Tales of the Phantom Moon Tower I'd have been prepared for it being *both* BL and Horror. As it was I unthinkingly accepted my friend's description of it as BL set in early Shouwa (mid-1920's) about the son and heir of a traditional miso shop. Miso shop, huh? Rivetting. But hey, early Shouwa, same period as Motoni Modoru's Detective Blue Cat, not bad. So I was naturally charmed when what looked to be fluffy BL did a sudden twist and turned into both a detective story and a very creepy ghost story.
I'd like to natter on about the twisty creepy ghost story/ weird occurrences aspect of this manga, but I know you're all here for the BL. OK. So we have the twittish heir to the miso business, Shouichirou, a man who can turn his hand passably to just about anything but who has never shown a deep interest in anything, who here begins an oddly rambunctious flirtation with a certain 'male geisha' Yosaburo. Male geisha is kind of a misnomer, but is better than the usual translation of the word, which is 'professional jester.' These taikomochi (lit: drum-carriers) were expected to have the same social arts as a geisha: music, witty repartee, the ability to foster a pleasant social atmosphere. They attended the geisha at their parties and helped put everyone in a happy social mood. They'd also be called to private houses to entertain the master. It may seem odd to us, but often enough what geisha are most prized for is their conversation. Comparisons are invited to the 18th century French 'learned ladies' who ran salons, where aristocrats and wits and divines and philosophers all rubbed shoulders together in democratic bonhomie.
Yosaburo isn't particularly gifted in anything but telling creepy ghost stories. But then he wasn't a male geisha by trade: he was a customer of the place who got into a fight with another client, was stabbed repeatedly and slowly nursed back to health by the retired owner of the establishment, and became a taikomochi in order to pay his debts. This is the story we're given, and it's as true as saying this manga is about the heir of a miso store who gets the hots for a male geisha. True as far as it goes but by no means the whole story. The whole story is... ahhh. Very satisfying in all ways.
Ima Ichiko writes one of these stories per year, just about. That's much too much too slow, given all the intriguing loose threads she leaves dangling about. I mean, we finally learn what's up with the retired owner but not what's up with the present one: and something is certainly up. She has the same smooth and not-quite-right look to her as various fox-spirits and ladylike youkai in the 100 Demons series. Her 'best guy' whom she entertains on days ending in 8 is, pretty clearly, something an ordinary person would avoid. Nor do we get the whole story on Shouichirou, the dorky miso-maker. For someone who announces at first sight that Yosaburo is The Man for Him!!!eleventy-one, and then embarrasses him by acting as if Yosaburo returns the emotion but-of-course, he turns out to have a very sophisticated knowledge of, and acquaintance with, a good many the geisha in the Yoshiwara. This Romping Seme act of his looks... very much like an act, purposes unknown.
There's odd echoes of Detective Bluecat here, both in setting and characterization, almost as if Ima were doing her own version of the same story. I haven't been following the Motoni series past the first few volumes, so I don't know if Bluecat de-dorkifies in time. But from what I've seen of both to date, my money is on Ima Ichiko to be the more substantial nuanced and satisfying read.
Truth in advertising also compels me to add: and the more headbangingly obscure. Ima Ichiko is besotted with the speakerless subjectless topicless dialogue bubble that contains information needed to know what's going on, but which you're not likely to understand until the end of the story, if then. Yes yes it adds to the mystery, but really. Will no-one think of the gaijin? I believe this one has been translated into Chinese. Lucky lucky Chinese readers, to have someone else deciding what stuff means for them. (Unless it turns out that Chinese can operate happily without subjects and verbs too...?)
And on a pedantic note: the title is a pun. Gengetsu sounds like 'crescent moon' but is written with the kanji for phantom moon. Also there's that rou thingy, here translated as 'tower', which any kanji dictionary I've looked at implies means some kind of tall edifice like a pagoda or whatever. Except that a 'rou master' means the owner of a brothel, and that the same character is the 'mansions' in the classic Chinese novel Dream of Red Mansions. 'Building of two or more storeys' my hanzi dictionary calls it. So decide for yourself if that's the Phantom Moon Tower or the Phantom Moon Mansion or the Phantom Moon Refined-Word-for-Whorehouse.