Mamoru Oshii And Satoshi Kon they need little introduction: these are two artists who have given works as gifts considered true masterpiecesas Ghost in the Shell (by Oshii) or Paprika (by Kon). It is not uncommon for artists, even famous ones, to find themselves collaborating on various projects, and in fact there is a product created jointly by Kon and Oshii, an unfinished manga which even their fans may not know, given its poor distribution.
Today we tell you about the collaboration between these two great authors and their manga “Seraphim 266613336Wings”.
“Prologue”
The birth of the project of “Seraphim” takes place in 1994 in the magazine Animagewhere it had just ended the serialization of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Hayao Miyazaki’s manga was a huge success, and the magazine’s directors began looking for authors capable of creating another series that would bring him the same popularity.
Among the authors contacted was Mamoru Oshii (who in previous years had produced works such as Patlabor, Lum: Beautiful Dreamer And Tenshi no Tamago), who enthusiastically proposed the incipit and prologue of a manga, with a worldbuilding already well constructed. The project was accepted by the publishers, and while Oshii would take care of the screenplay himself recommended Satoshi Kon as designerwith whom he had already worked.
The two focused on every aspect of the manga together, giving each other suggestions, with Oshii also taking an interest in the storyboard and Kon giving some ideas for the plot. According to what we know today, it seems that this “fusion” between the roles, which were previously very distinct, gave rise to the first discussions between the two, who ended up having divergent ideas regarding the development of the work.
The disagreements between the two were such that, after only 16 chapters, they abandoned the project, just over a year after it began.
After having summarized the story behind this collaboration, however, let’s see in detail what the manga was about.
“…what is the kingdom of God like?”
The story of Seraphim 266613336Wings is set in a post-apocalyptic worldwhere the population is being decimated by a mysterious virus, called “disease of angels”. The protagonists are two men and a dog, who have been given the task of escorting a mysterious girl. The group is sent by the WHO to the Taklamakan deserti.e. the place where the epidemic could have started, to study its origin and find a cure.
The characters, however, will have to deal not only with the dangerous disease that could strike them, but also with political factions that are competing for the last supplies and some territories of Central Asia, through which they will have to pass.
The aspect most highlighted by the history of Seraphim it’s not so much about the disease itself, but rather about how humans react in the face of such a devastating epidemic: where governments have fallen, organized crime has intervened, while the growing fear of the people has led to the birth of violent, anarchic groups, led to carry out a real witch hunt against anyone showing a possible symptom of the disease.
A factor that makes the work particularly interesting is the choice to set it in our worldwith real-life events to come reinvented and adapted in a fantasy-dystopian key: we certainly notice a strong attention to detail in telling the reader how the balance between the various countries has changed, or how and why tensions have arisen even within them.
The world building of Seraphimon a purely geopolitical level, therefore manages to communicate a strong sense of realism that makes it easy to identify with, despite the fantasy elements that surround it. On this aspect I want to stop hereas I prefer you, the readers, to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the story, especially considering the excellent dialogues that narrate everything.
Another particularly important theme of the workas can be guessed from the incipit of the plot, it is the religious one, with obvious references to the Christian religion and the Bible. This topic, however interesting, is also the one that remains most enigmatic: given the interruption of the story, we have no idea what the manga wanted to communicate through this themewhether to use it for social criticism or to deal with more philosophical themes, concerning spirituality, as well as how it would be integrated into a plot with a strong political component.
The Italian edition of Seraphim 266613336Wingsedited by Panini Comicswould be contained in the volume OPUS by Satoshi Kon, however it is currently very difficult to find, with the official online stores indicating it as out of stock; for this reason, I decided to base myself on the English edition of the Dark Horsethe only one I found available at the time. If you also want to recover Seraphimyou can do it by keeping an eye Amazonwhere copies become available from time to time, in particular those in English, Spanish and German (provided, of course, that you know the language).
Another reason to get the Dark Horse edition is to the addition of an interesting writing by Carl Gustav Horn (the publisher of the English version), who takes a few pages at the end of the volume to delve into everything that surrounded the production of the manga and the differences between the two authors, also explaining how publishing worked in Japan at the time and how the impact of anime films in the world was changing thanks also to Oshii and Kon, and then focusing on a tribute to the latter.
“Seraphim left off here…”
The collaboration between the two ends in November 1995, with the last chapter seeing the protagonists leave towards the Taklamakan desert. Both Oshii and Kon took different paths, but they both led to success, as we well know today.
The authors sometimes found themselves working together for some animated series during the early 2000s, but neither of them seemed willing to revisit the manga. Seraphimand the last hopes of seeing it continued in the future finally disappeared with Kon’s death in 2010.
Seraphim 266613336Wings It’s a read that certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth, however, in its short duration, I found it decidedly interesting: if you love these two great artists it is easy to find yourself fascinated by every page, whether it is for Kon’s excellent drawings or for the profound themes and dialogues covered by Oshii. Both authors had managed to give life to an extremely complex and multifaceted world in just a few chapters, then adding an intriguing symbolism that was hidden behind the many historical and religious references.
Obviously, its incompleteness makes it a read that can be appreciated by very fewbut if you’re a fan of Oshii and Kon’s works, you might at least find the idea of seeing their vision of a comic developed together fascinating.
With chapter 16 of the manga, the story stops and Seraphim 266613336Wings it leaves us alone, to travel with our imagination and imagine what it could have become.
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