I started to read this manga because I thought that combination of seinen genre and Orthodox Christian theme should be a very interesting mixture. Unfortunately, Usagi was right, when she said that thinking isn't going to get us anywhere. It sure didn't — neither me, nor the author.
My main points are:
1. The manga is not really a seinen. Not for me at least.
2. Author's knowledge of a source material is zero to none.
3. The plot was being constructed on the go all the way through, minimum planing involved.
4. Characters are bland and, what's even worse, inconsistent.
5. The plot is erratic and is composed
...
of all the cliches you can possibly pile up in one place.
Now I would like to elaborate a little.
1. Alleged demographics of the manga is off. While its definitely mature in nudity, gore and sometimes even with respect to the themes it employs (rape, terrorism), in thoughts and emotions it's incredibly juvenile. Plot structure, storytelling, dialogs, motivations, conflicts, character development - all these things are just good for early teens to be impressed. In its core, manga is your typical shonen, with grueling fights, lewd bath times and confused and reflective friendships (lots and lots of those). To illustrate my point, imagine you are watching Sesame Street and every 20 minutes some dude is beheaded out of the blue on the main scene - and then the show just resumes its counting lesson of the day. You definitely can't allow your kids to watch it now, but does it make it good 18+ entertainment? No, it doesn't. So, this manga is seinen by raiting, not by essence. Moving on.
2. The author uses particular themes to build up his setting. Those themes are: Christianity in general, Orthodox (Eastern) Christianity, Russian characters and culture. As I have already mentioned, it sounded very interesting beforehand. There are defenetly authors out there who can create strongly immersive and even educational experience using a well-crafted setting and unconventional themes. I mean, they for sure can provide you with hundreds sumo terms and thousands ramen terms if they feel like it. You just have to do your research, of course, don't you? So, how well did the author do his research? The answer is: he practically didn't.
First of all, he really doesn't know Christianity any more than contemporary culture allows him to. He knows, that Jesus is involved somehow and even remembers an outdated flick about Da Vinci's Code, but not more than that. His knowledge of orthodoxy is laughable. Sometimes he recreates garments in their likelihood (mixing Orthodox and Catholic elements heavily, though) and shows us vague church backgrounds a couple of times (redrawn photos really), but in general he just tries to fantasize himself out of the obscurity. He doesn't know church ranks, institutions or sects; instead, he creates his own generic animefest of a lore. He doesn't know creeds, relics, customs, routines of the religion he tries to reference, even basic stuff. Just think about it: not a single orthodox character in the manga crosses himself once and not one icon can be spotted in the living quarters. A way to put a samurai into the Victorian chair! Even in such miniscule things he can't afford himself to be diligent. All he knows about Russian history - slander of common school routine and headlines of tourist pamphlets, like Faberge eggs - that's the level for you. All his Russian characters, white haired and blue eyed, behave like japanese character tropes: nothing really indicates that they belong to another culture. I mean, Sasha eats borsch sometimes (the only Russian meal that the author knows, evidently). That's a pity though that he eats it on breakfast.
Now, there is some Russian language that's been flashed out on the pages from time to time. Couple of words on that topic. First of all, Sasha's full name, Alexander Nikolaevich Hell, is ridiculous in its surname part. Hell is not a real name or surname or anything that is present in Russian language, it's just an English word which means what it means. It's like if it was written "John Bathtub" in a random American passport, but Bathtub was in Chinese. You got the point. Second, there are numerous childish lexical and grammatical mistakes. For example, sometimes cold-hearted Sasha exclaims "УТЮГ!", which is supposed to mean "AN IRON". Now, that part is tricky. In English "iron" can mean either a chemical element or a known household appliance. But in Russian there are two different words for that: "железо" which means "iron as an element" and "утюг" which means "iron as a household appliance". Not only does that show that Sasha expresses his feelings with the help of a common item name, but also that the author searched the translation in English-Russian dictionary, probably entrusting the task to his lazy assistant anyway. All and all, Russian phrases in the manga are dead vignettes among many other similar sad things.
So, there is the question present: why even bother to venture into a world of another culture if you can't do that even remotely decently? Knowing the overall chaotic nature of this manga, my theory is this. It is probably started with some small but vivid idea like a blonde and alienated emo boy in a regular japanese school. Then the author thought that it would be good if the protagonist was Russian, because it's cool and fresh. Then cruel force of random associations from watching too many movies concocted religious background. Then the author kinda googled some images. Then he pitched the idea which he consequently developed without putting in the process a bit of heart, soul and conscience. Maybe it's supposed to be that way most of the times: after all every manga should have a gimmick and every cartoonist should have a living. But those who think that this Sunday afternoon chronicles provide them with an actual knowledge of russian religion, culture or everyday life, are victims of a hoax and therefore delusional.
3, 4, 5. Anticlimatic as it is, not much to say here. If you watched some soap opera juggernauts like Santa Barbara, you can imagine the overall flow of the manga: focus of interest, events, arcs are jerking and changing constantly without much of a buildup, development or, what's most irritating, actual connection. It's like heaps of neverending fillers without fundamental design and guiding thought. I can almost hear the author asking himself constantly: "What's next?", even from one chapter to another, even mid chapter. And over and over he is forced to resort to another unbelievable plot twist, kindergarten exaggeration or inclusion of a papery character. All the body of the narrative is constructed out of manifold of pieces indecently glued together. There are a lot of loose ends, unexplained facts and plain roughness sticking out through the unpolished surface of the story. Plot points are shifting, guidelines are changing, even characters are altering. When first introduced, Phanagia is an omnipotent circuit wielder with sexually liberated, laid-back personality, but by the end, she is your typical sacrificial hentai cow. Speaking of which, the author probably has in his contract to draw 5 to something pornographic pages in each chapter, and, let me tell you, for THAT he has necessary dedication, that's for sure! Two most annoying points of the manga - redundant boob-grabbing and angelic flashbacks.
So, what we have here is a below average shonen with mandatory inclusion of lube and guts that make it even more cringy and tedious. I would recommend this manga for people of the particular taste or age.
May 28, 2020
Seikon no Qwaser
(Manga)
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I started to read this manga because I thought that combination of seinen genre and Orthodox Christian theme should be a very interesting mixture. Unfortunately, Usagi was right, when she said that thinking isn't going to get us anywhere. It sure didn't — neither me, nor the author.
My main points are: 1. The manga is not really a seinen. Not for me at least. 2. Author's knowledge of a source material is zero to none. 3. The plot was being constructed on the go all the way through, minimum planing involved. 4. Characters are bland and, what's even worse, inconsistent. 5. The plot is erratic and is composed ... |
