Note: I received a digital galley of this book through NetGalley. ( )

One of my favorite graphic novels of all time is I Kill Giants, not only for its powerful story, but its evocative and moving artwork. What does that have to do with Henshin you wonder? Well Ken Niimura of course! He was the artist of I Kill Giants and this is his first book printed in English since then. In Henshin, Niimura weaves together multiple short stories showing the reader a side of Tokyo they’ve not seen before of a lonely girl discovering herself, a young child with superpowers, and a rather...eccentric uncle.

The book is read in typically Manga style fashion, back to front (at least in the European sense.) Niimura’s writing in the series is often sparse, like his artwork, but conveys a great deal of emotion that builds during the story....although sometimes it doesn’t translate so well to English. This isn’t the fault of Niimura, but more that he writes about customs and humors that would be familiar to Japanese readers, but that require a bit more effort at times for English readers to understand. Overall though, most of the time the sense of the story shines through, leaving for a delightful read.

While the stories never directly connect with each other they share a common bond of showing us different perspectives and aspects of Tokyo and life. Niimura shares the story of his characters in short but moving vignettes, each showcasing a different aspect of life. His lines are spare, but evocative easily conveying emotion and the character’s thoughts in a simple line depicting the squint of an eye or the quirk of an eyebrow. Expression lines are also used to great effect, to show running or fear for the characters. Niimura uses the backgrounds just as effectively, often just a few lines to give us a building or the stripe on a baseball field. But when the backgrounds are slightly more complex, such as the equipment in a hospital room, Niimura continues to use sparse lines, just putting together the shape of what needs to be in the room for effect, without overwhelming the story.

My favorite story in this collection is actually the first one. A young woman travelling to live with her aunt and uncle for a while. She’s quiet. Like really, really quiet. Doesn’t say anything, but has the subtle air that something has happened and gone wrong. Perhaps she’s seen too much and needs to hide for a while. Her Uncle comes off as that goofy, somewhat eccentric uncle that has a heart of gold. And then you find out...well maybe he isn’t as goofy as we think he is.

The best read a like for this book, at least in terms of art style, would be I Kill Giants. In terms of story, at least for some of the stories in this collection, would be Yotsuba&!, which has the same sense of eccentricity and fun that Henshin does, even though it is aimed at a somewhat younger audience. ( )

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

Henshin is a collection of short mangas, and also one of the weirdest things I've ever read.

They are all very short, I guess about 30 pages each and real random. Some (quite a lot actually) have a somewhat macabre twist at the end. Others are completely dedicated to cats.

It's really hard for me to make my mind up about it. It was definitely something different and I'm glad I read it. But I did feel like I should have known more before starting because it didn't make a lot of sense to me. It's because of that I don't know who to recommend this to, but if you're looking for something completely different, try this one.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! ( )

J. M. Ken Niimura is probably best known for his collaboration as an illustrator with writer Joe Kelly on I Kill Giants, an award-winning American comic that was completed in 2008. Among many other honors, the work earned Niimura and Kelly the top International Manga Award in 2012. A Spanish artist of Japanese descent, Niimura currently lives and works in Tokyo. Henshin is his first major Japanese publication. The collection includes thirteen short manga that were originally released online between 2013 and 2014 on the website for Ikki, a magazine that has been the home to some of my favorite mangaka, before finally being collected into a single volume. (An interesting sidenote: I Kill Giants was also published in Japan by Ikki Comix.) Henshin was subsequently released in Spanish in 2014 by Norma Editorial and in English by Image Comics in 2015. Out of the three print releases of Henshin, the English-language edition has the largest trim size.

The manga collected in Henshin are short, anywhere from twelve to twenty-eight pages in length. Although there are a variety of genres and styles, the stories generally fall into one of two broad categories: those that are semi-autobiographical, focusing on either Niimura's creative processes or his love of cats, and those that are fictional narratives largely set in or near Tokyo or otherwise featuring Tokyoites. For the most part, the individual manga are unrelated and stand perfectly well on their own, but the first and last stories do share the same lead characters and there is a running episodic story about Niimura and a cat that lives near his apartment. Henshin includes slice-of-life manga, as well as manga with science fiction and fantasy elements, pieces infused with nostalgia, family and friends, pieces where loneliness and missed connections predominate, stories with a bit of humor, and stories with a bit of sadness.

Although the manga in Henshin are all different, they do share some thematic and narrative similarities. The first story, "No Good," perfectly captures the tone of the volume as a whole. It starts out as a seemingly innocent tale but it suddenly shifts into something completely unexpected and outlandish. Most of the stories in Henshin have some sort of twist to them that require the reader to reconsider and reevaluate everything that has come before. Those surprising plot developments may be humorous, touching, absurd, disconcerting, or even morbid, in any combination. In Japanese, "henshin" means transformation, metamorphosis, or change, which is exactly what the stories collected in the volume have to offer—pivotal moments in which all of a sudden things are no longer the same, demanding a new and different understanding of reality.

Niimura exhibits a range of art styles in Henshin, drawing influence from Asian, European, and American comics traditions. Some of the illustrations are simple caricatures while others are more detailed or involved, some even reminiscent of classic ink wash paintings. The artwork in each of the short manga is tailored to fit the specific story and its mood, but in every case Niimura's illustrations show impressive narrative strength. In general, Henshin uses minimal text and dialogue—one manga is even completely wordless—relying on the artwork (which performs magnificently) to actively aid in the telling of the stories. Henshin is an excellent and rather delightful collection of charming and quirky short manga that, in all of its strangeness and occasional absurdity, remains emotionally relevant and carries an impact. I enjoyed Henshin immensely and hope to have the opportunity to read more of Niimura's comics and manga in the future.

Experiments in Manga ( )

This is basically commonly used Japanese tropes turned into manga and piled together in one graphic novel. Stories of families with super powers, an uncle that unknowingly works with the yakuza, a drunk businessman getting into a fight to save a girl, a Japanese “yankee” (thug)- all basic Japanese tropes if you’ve ever read manga or watched dramas.

What is nice is that each story is not only written differently, but the art is also different. It also includes the classical manga “notes from the author” art that is actually parts of the stories. The author, it seems, is obsessed with cats.

Overall, I recommend Henshin to readers who already have a good grasp of Japanese culture and literature. It might not be an easy starting point for those just jumping in.

www.readingbifrost.com ( )