![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Sickness-unto-Death-150x208.jpg\")
\nBy Hikaru Asada<\/b> & Takahiro Seguchi<\/b> (Vertical)
\nISBN: 978-1-939130-09-9<\/p>\n
\nBy Hikaru Asada<\/b> & Takahiro Seguchi<\/b> (Vertical)
\nISBN: 978-1-939130-09-9<\/p>\n
Continuing their line of challenging manga for adult readers, Vertical have begun here a two-volume translation of Takahiro Seguchi’s <\/b>gripping psychological melodrama Sickness Unto Death<\/b>: a bleak and enthralling, emotionally complex tale of love, compulsion and dependency turned into spellbinding comics by artist Hikaru Asada.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Danish Christian philosopher S\u00c3\u00b8ren Kierkegaard’s treatise The Sickness Unto Death<\/b>, this extremely accessible tale first appeared in Japan as Shi ni Itaru Yamai<\/i>, serialised in Hakusensha’s fortnightly Seinen magazine Young Animal<\/i><\/b> in 2009, and opens with a Professor standing beside a student over the grave of his first case – and greatest love\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
When, as a young man, Kazuma Futaba<\/i> came to the city to study clinical psychology, he was lucky to find lodgings in an old house. However on his way there he encountered a young girl with white hair suffering a crushing anxiety attack in the street. Although everybody ignored the crippled creature he went to her assistance and happily complied with her desperate need to be held.<\/p>\n
‘Emiru’<\/i> was impossibly cold to the touch and although both were merely 18 years old she seemed inexorably gripped by an ancient despondency, and overwhelming gloom\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
When she recovered he hurried on to find his new digs in a vast old house and met the butler Kuramoto<\/i> who revealed that the place belonged to the orphan Emiru Ariga<\/i>, a beautiful vivacious creature who had within the last two years suddenly succumbed to a crushing ‘Despair’<\/i> so great it had bleached her hair, caused drastic weight-loss, weakened her heart and caused her body temperature to fall to far below normal. He described it as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153terminal illness of the spirit\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
She spent most of her time locked in her room, drawing monsters and waiting to die\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Intrigued, desperate to help but painfully aware of how inexperienced he was, Futaba examined the compliant, barely-living corpse and determined to somehow help her. At least she showed some animation when he was near. Both Kuramoto and his young mistress wanted Futaba to fix her\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
In ‘Haunted Mansion’<\/i> the relationship developed further as the student transferred what he learnt by day at school into evening practise. Emiru seemed brighter, even though she believed the house concealed ghosts\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
When Kuramoto was called away for a few days, he left Futaba in charge, but after the frail girl spent too long in a bath the boy had panicked and broke in, seeing her painfully thin, nude form for the first time. Embarrassed and confused he dashed out and discovered a mystery room, door nailed shut with heavy planks.<\/p>\n
Emiru saw ghosts: a crying, lonely child and a monster with teeth but no face\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Her sleep was perpetually disturbed, and Futaba – after learning about Night Terrors in class – agreed to ‘Sharing a Bed’<\/i>, even though he was no longer certain his own motives were strictly professional. Nevertheless, resolved to save her he began with a ‘Psych Assessment’<\/i>, gathering facts and personal history, but learned little more than once she was normal and then suddenly she wasn’t\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Emiru spent increasing time locked in despair, weeping outside the barred room; her traumatic nights eased by Kazuma’s platonic presence, although she felt the spectral presence of ‘The One in the Mansion’<\/i> whenever he was away\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
In the present, Professor Futaba and student Minami<\/i> – who thinks she too can see a ghost in the abandoned dwelling – explore the deserted, decrepit mansion which housed his greatest regret. When they stop at a monster drawing scrawled on a wall, it takes him back to those troubled years\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
A setback in Emiru’s recovery occurred when another ghost sighting triggered a wave of depression and young Futaba learned of her carefree ‘High School Years’<\/i> from fellow psych student Koizumi<\/i> – a classmate of Emiru when she a healthy, happy, raven-haired ball of wild energy, fun and adventure\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Koizumi believed she became burdened with some terrible secret which overnight transformed her into the frail fading creature Futaba describes, prompting the floundering lad to confer with his tutor Professor Otsuki<\/i> who lent him a copy of Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death<\/b>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
For such a weakened patient even a cold could be fatal, but with Futaba at her side Emiru pulled through. However after recovering she had enticed him into crossing a ‘Forbidden Line’<\/i> but neither as therapist nor lover was young Futaba assured of securing her ‘Happiness and Beauty’<\/i> until and unless he could her unburden her obsessive soul of the dark secret strangling it from within\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
To Be Concluded\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n
Beguiling and hypnotic, this exceptional medical mystery\/ghostly love story is far from the familiar – to Western eyes at least – explosive bombast and action slapstick normally associated with manga. As such it might just make a few converts amongst die-hard holdouts who prefer sensitive writing, deep themes and human scale to their comics.<\/p>\n
Moody, moving and far more than just another adult comic, Sickness Unto Death <\/b>is that rare thing: a graphic novel for people who don’t think they like comics\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n