By Kenji Tsuruta, translated by Dana Lewis & Toren Smith (Dark Horse Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-56971-288-7
Unlike many manga tales translated into English, acclaimed author and illustrator Kenji Tsuruta’s beguiling fantasy Spirit of Wonder, although carrying all the trappings of a blistering science fiction comedy romp, is a sweet romantic comedy with genteel, anything is possible, sentimental yearning as the driving force.
Set in a charming alternate time and place so like our own world, it follows the Byzantine trials and tribulations of feisty, beautiful tavern owner Miss China and her truly bizarre, indigent and obnoxious upstairs tenants – the genuinely mad Professor Breckenridge and his gorgeous, hunky assistant Jim Floyd…
Creator Kenji Tsuruta was born in 1961 and studied optical science, intending to pursue a career in photography before happily making the jump to narrative storytelling as manga artist, designer, book illustrator and anime creator.
A lifelong fan of “hard science†science fiction authors like Robert A. Heinlein and the comic works of Tetsuya Chiba and Yukinobu (Saber Tiger) Hoshino, after years of producing self-published dÅjinshi whilst working as an assistant to established manga stars, Tsuruta began selling his own works in 1986 when his short fantasy serial Hiroku te suteki na uchÅ« ja nai ka (‘What a Big Wonderful Universe It Is’) was published in Kodansha’s Weekly Morning magazine.
Soon after, he began this enticing, enchanting scientific romance of gently colliding worlds which ran in both Weekly Morning and monthly magazine Afternoon between 1987 and 1996 before making the smooth transition to animated features and an award-winning TV series. This English edition comes courtesy of Dark Horse Comics who published the first few translated episodes as a 5-issue black and white comics miniseries in 1995-6.
In a comfortable faux-Victorian milieu, the exotic immigrant Lady Chinaruns the Ten-Kai Tavern in the sleepy yet cosmopolitan port-town ofBristol. The generally peaceful burg hardly ever-changes, but China’s life is one of constant struggle to make a comfortable living, especially as she rents her upstairs rooms to a couple of crackpot deadbeats who continually mess up the place with their idiotic contraptions and persistently fail to pay their rent.
The older guy is truly annoying and doesn’t care about anything beyond his latest weird invention but his assistant is a sweet and delightful young man who has capturedChina’s fast-beating heart…
The wonderment begins on another belated rent day with ‘Miss China’s Ring or Doctor Breckenridge and the Amazing Ether Reflector mirror!’ as the frustrated landlady is again forced to employ her formidable martial arts skills to get the insufferable Professor’s attention – if not the long-delayed and constantly accruing cash payable.
It’s not a good time, as Breckenridge is entertaining potential investors in his latest creation which promises safe travel to the Moon…
The meeting does not end well and both landlady and tenant depart unsatisfied, whilst in another part of town Jim – whose responsibilities include doing everything and somehow finding the money to pay for it – is picking up a vital component from pretty “florist†Lily (a girl with amazing connections able to procure anything wayward inventors might ever require).
UnfortunatelyChinasees the object of her desire spending what should be rent money on a very pretty flower girl and goes ballistic…
Floyd adoresChinatoo but as a typical guy is utterly unable to tell her. He can, however, thanks to his mad mentor Breckenridge and some astounding discoveries left by his own vanished father – another technological miracle man – give her the moon.
Literally…
Jim givesChinaa ring as a birthday present but she is too furious to care. She wants rent not trinkets from a flighty gadabout. If only she could calm down enough, she would see that the gift is carved from actual moon rock, but beaten into a strategic retreat, Jim realises he needs to make a somewhat grander gesture…
Heartbroken,Chinafalls asleep and is much calmer when she awakes. Bringing her troublesome tenants tea, she looks up into the sky and sees the message Jim has carved into the shining luminous lunar surface…
Stunned and troubled she moves through the days in a dream. Even with the evidence above his head Breckenridge still can’t get anyone to bankroll him and is driven to unwise acts. Soon the entire world is imperilled by his etheric meddlings and the moon is plummeting on a deadly collision course withBristol.
Luckily the uniquely physical and practical talents of MissChinaare of some use in averting disaster if not setting things totally aright…
‘The Flight of Floyd’ opens with the Mad Professor oafishly seeking to make amends by giving China a flying broomstick, before concluding that he will never understand women. The lovelorn landlady simply wishes she could make Jim pay attention to her, superstitiously wishing upon a shooting star, but the object of her infatuation is preoccupied with completing his missing father’s gravity disrupter and with off-handed tactlessness explains that she’s doing it wrong…
Once again the cause of increasingChina’s woes, the hapless Floyd decides to use his Gravitation Gate to make things right – by creating a permanent rain of meteors for the lovely landlady to wish upon, momentarily forgetting that whilst pretty in the evening sky a bombardment of incandescent rock packs a bit of a punch when hitting the Earth…
The marvellous merriment concludes with ‘China strikes Back parts 1 and 2, or Doctor Breckenridge and the Astounding Instantaneous Matter Transmitter!’ which finds times hard in Bristol as the town shivers under a blanket of snow and the cash-strapped, customer-starved Lady China forced to get increasingly heavy with her free-loading lodgers. She is also taking out her bad moods on the townspeople and the few customers still frequenting the inn for food and drinks
However when she once again busts in the upstairs door in search of her overdue payments, she finds the Professor and Jim have vanished, taking all their ludicrous junk with them.
They haven’t gone far, however. In fact they haven’t gone anywhere at all, but simply set up a system by whichChina’s entrances and exits teleport her to and from an empty set of duplicate rooms, leaving the unscrupulous tinkerers free to stay at the tavern without being bothered.
Sadly they hadn’t bothered to soundproof the floors of the upper rooms or warn black market tech dealer Lily of their latest innovation and when China discovers the scam – in the most embarrassing manner possible – Jim is forced into a fury of improvisation before he’s able to make things right…
This enchanting blend of Steampunk and gleeful science whimsy is a sharp, wry and fantastically ingenious human drama, filled with gentle good humour and warmth, rendered with such astonishing sensitivity and imagination that the most outrageous scenes appear thoroughly rational, authentic and real – although sadly some people might focus far too much on the innocent, unconscious and completely casual nudity rather than the superb story and characterisations on display.
Filled with extra cover illustrations, pin-ups and an engaging interview with the creator, Spirit of Wonder is a treat for every open-hearted, big-minded romantic and one no fantasy fan should be denied.
© 1996 Kenji Tsuruta. All rights reserved.