Can you tell that I love this?

God. Damn.

Disasters in fiction are, with little exception, treated in such a detached manner that at the best they simply become a catalyst for the plot or rush to the climax, or at worst become a footnote to more fantastical proceedings. Yet in our day-to-day lives, what else is a more mystical, more unifying event that can grasp our attention and concern when it involves People Like Us? It is this tragic spectacle and its consequent schism -- those that a society can identify with and stir up the most passionate of emotions, and those that maintain a distance of privilege, only seeing it as another human interest story or political opportunity -- that Hideki Arai fights with in volumes eight and nine of The World is Mine.

At the cliff-hanger of volume seven, the six principal characters had gathered in Odate, surprised by an appearance of Higumadon. The beast blazes through the city in a straight line, destroying anything that moves and in his way. And the results are devastating. Both of these volumes are entirely concerned with the giant brown bear's destruction -- both the event itself, and the reactions to it. Arai slips back and forth through the morning hours of the catastrophe, shifting viewpoint from the streets, hospitals, media, local and federal government and, eventually, to the rest of the world. The coverage is so personal, so wide-scale and so detailed that it attains a type of authenticity that's rarely seen in comics, film or television. Arai leads us through every angle and interpretation, emphasizing a sense of impact and importance that would be utterly lost with nearly any other writer.

With this scope enhanced, Arai flashes to various locations -- New York, Beijing, Kautokeino, Vancouver, Cairo, Berlin, Rome, London, Paris -- but none more important than 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC. We are introduced to this universe's President of the United States of America, Dogwood Hayes (and various staff and cabinet members, one of whom is African-American and quite admirably devoid of the blackface). After a brief overview of the war in the fictional country of Aldonia (an allusion to Albania) and making a brief arrangement to announce the end of the war in time for Christmas, the Odate disaster is brought into focus. Hayes gets Japan's Prime Minister, Kanpei Yuri, on the phone, leading to the greatest conversation between two nation's leaders outside of Dr. Strangelove. The discussion starts absurdly enough, with Hayes remarking about his hot milk curdling while waiting for Yuri's call, then moving on to how the prime minister will have to perform a strip tease on live television on demands on the Toshi-Mon duo back in volume three. But this humorous exchange provokes the ire of the president, degenerating the talk to an arrogant war of words between the two. Yuri laments his lack of resources to deal with Higumadon's and Toshi-Mon's endless destruction (which has become more complicated as imitators have begun to use their own bombs), while Hayes is unrelenting about the notion of ever ceding to terrorists; both continue to express snide criticisms of the opposing nation's narrowed cultural outlooks and military might.

Then, as the surreal conversation ends, Arai smoothly brings us back to Odate. Iijima, the hunter, contends with dragging the reporter, Hoshino, to the hospital after the latter had been hit by one of Toshi's bombs during the confusion of Higumadon's rampage. While there, he reaches the attention of two police chiefs (one a deputy, the other recently demoted), Yoshiharu Yakushiji and Junichi Shiomi -- both having given extensive building by Arai previously in this volume, complete with exaggerated tics of the former's slobber and the latter's fidgety hands. While being questioned about what he saw when face-to-face with not only Higumadon, but also with the terrorists, Iijima notes that he saw a girl with them, being forced to a photo of their triumph of survival and proof of their prophecy. When asked why he didn't save her from them, he casually remarks that it's none of his business, invoking the follow scene:

One particular dilemma addressed in volume eight is moral judgment of and even loyalty to criminals. Having followed two terrorists for half of the series, Arai has humanized them near to the point of sympathy. Almost as if recognizing this, Arai breaks this down. Mon becomes an even grander specter in his meeting with Higumadon in Odate. Iijima watches the two otherworldly beasts collide and further confirms what the narrative has hinted previously. The other half of the duo, Toshi, shows no detached transcendence as he falls into an even deeper range of psychosis. Gone are the nervous tics of inexperience and overwhelming fear of being apprehended: Toshi kills as he sees fit, manipulating whomever he pleases with no regard to anyone's life but his own.

Even having shifted the character into a darker light, the complexity never wavers. After escaping the aforementioned Higumadon rampage, there is a brief struggle involving him, Mon and Maria -- the girl they had met once before, and have now kidnapped upon a second encounter. Facing potential death at having lost his gun to the girl, with Mon impassively observing, Toshi panics. He rambles on not just about the choice of killing himself, but also of Maria choosing to spare Mon for the fact that he has saved her due to a vague kinship that has grown during their brief encounters. Both decisions become problematic for the young woman, realizing that her principle of valuing life to the utmost degree would be compromised for killing Toshi, yet would also fall apart should she let him life because there is no question that his plans still involve murdering countless more lives; this is compounded even further by the fact that Mon has been directly response for far, far more humans than Toshi has. Amidst her deliberation Toshi prods her further, ranting about the system of law and killing numerous people both in and out of prison. His solution to cleansing this public image by winning the hearts of the media and society by becoming a bestseller with his memoirs and speculations, then donating any money earned to the victims' families.

Like anything else in the series, the scene is bleak, hilarious, over-the-top, gripping and just fucking insane.

Of course, there's all sorts of personal stories here, such as a man struggling to help another get out of their car which has fallen through his home's roof, his family watching aghast at his potentially suicidal actions; or a helicopter pilot recalling and regretting his inability to do anything during the Kobe earthquake, hoping to perform better for others this time; or a young woman filling in for a reporter that had been crushed by Higumadon, fumbling as she finds herself unable to genuinely report the horrors she's witnessed. Although they don't advance the plot, they emphasize the range and humanity Arai strives for, never dipping too far into sentimentality but consistently providing the different reactions to the violence and chaos that has fallen upon them all.

There's so much more that can be covered -- for instance, the narrative break to the life and history of Maria's friend, Junko, who becomes pivotal to the plot by the end of volume nine -- but little justice can be done by descriptions alone. The World is Mine has become even more socially, politically and philosophically relevant since its publication as terrorism continues to evolve in various incarnations, addling us with paranoia, distrust and division on a larger scale than anything before. It's an overwhelming work with an uncompromised ambition and vision with a story lurching on to something ultimately indefinable, but undeniably powerful.

The World is Mine, Volumes 01-07

This is an awful and inadequate review, especially considering how this manga deserves the best review ever.

But, honestly, how the fuck do you describe this?

Little has been said in English about The World is Mine, a series as bombastic as its declarative title suggests. Translator Stephen Paul did a review a couple years back, and our own Andrew Cunningham provided his own thoughts last year. The only other mention has apparently been in an old Pulp magazine article that includes it in a list of the least-likely manga to be licensed and translated into English. In its opening chapters, the reason for this becomes evident: two would-be terrorists, Toshi and Mon, find themselves in a series of routine events that end in brief explosions of violence (courtesy of the more ego-driven Mon, seemingly disregarding the immediate consequences of those around him).

What makes the first volume and a half of the original fourteen series print run (halfway through the first volume of the five volume reprint) a difficult read is that these personal stories are interrupted and impersonally destroyed. The Toshi-Mon duo are not the only ones responsible for these early depictions of carnage; an enormous, Godzilla-sized brown bear, soon dubbed Higumadon, traverses through mountainous terrain, slowly creating its own myths as the monster kills the people it finds in its way. Eventually the attention of the media settles upon Toshi and Mon through an escalation of bombing incidents -- first in a policeman's car, then at a pachinko parlor, and finally at a police station. It is here where Arai seems content to invite readers in, as the focus becomes more committed and Very Big Questions are addressed from Toshi to the Japanese government -- all, of course, a mere diversion. Just as Arai hooks the audience in with this horrifying hostage exhibition, the situation's resolution gives way to another story where an oddly gifted, confident hunter and a meek, secretly juvenile newspaper writer track down reports about and evidence of Higumadon.

Arai gracefully juggles these different plotlines, freely moving back and forth between the two parallel stories. The pacing is just as fluid, with a range of multiple days being summed up over a few chapters to devoting an entire chapter to eight seconds. This movement creates an incredibly dynamic narrative that allows tension to build when appropriate -- such as the aforementioned bombings and hostage situation -- to a graceful slide back as Arai examines the media and political reactions to both Toshi-Mon's escapades and Higumadon, as well as the supporting characters' observations and actions.

It is, in fact, these very same characters that also provide some of the most compelling tales. Idiosyncratic traits are applied to every named-character -- including the aforementioned hunter and reporter, as well a deranged police commander and a rebellious, perverted prime minister -- making them instantly recognizable even after separation of reading the series for nearly a year. The main female character, Maria (the counterpoint to the pettiness of Toshi and the viciousness of Mon), is reintroduced after a seemingly throwaway encounter, becoming as tangibly real as a fictional character can as Arai sets his panels amidst her daily life before literally abducting the girl back into the plot. If these snapshots provide an uplifting and admirable life, then Arai's readiness to acknowledge the more sordid and depressing side of humanity must be equally respected. As news breaks out about the killer's identities, the contented lull of Toshi's parents is stolen from them. Toshi's mother, in particular, provides an utterly devastating account as the media entrenches itself into every aspect of her life, ruining and ultimately extinguishing it. Even the incidental characters, such as the couple taken into the mountains by Toshi and Mon after the police station incident, are given very human faces before they meet an ill fate as Toshi desperately tries to kill the woman as Mon watches on, laughing at his partner's struggle to finish the job.

Beyond any doubt, the violence is intensely visceral, toeing a line of sensational but never crossing it into glorification. This is primarily due to Arai's compositions and art, frequently breaking the process down to where there is only pain on the page.

This is not to say that Arai never permits a spectacle to unfold, whether it's a portrait of the fight for survival or senseless destruction of a city.

Still, where the strength of Arai's art lay at its greatest -- though likely least-appreciated by the average reader -- is the sheer range of emotion and facial structure of his characters. No one design looks like another, completely rejecting an all-too common truism in manga and anime where the Big Eyes, Small Mouths run dominant with only different hair styles and clothing to differentiate between them.

Mon especially embodies this, displaying excitement, boredom, amusement, fear, contemplation, et cetera, within one volume. Through his charisma Arai captures all moods, pivoting the narrative around his mystifying development between two extremisms as those surrounding him attempt to manipulate, destroy or curb his abrasive tendencies.

Halfway through the story, I have absolutely no idea where the end point might be, or what it will involve. What little I've read of indicates a type of large scope that defines epics, with other countries becoming involved. That a more mythical bent also is more evident comes as no surprise, either; even as obvious as Higumadon is, the first half of the series has scattered scenes of surrealism, supported by a reinterpreted mythos that Arai establishes as his own.

Yet is there an all-encompassing Message from the Author? I can only guess for now. Despite how upfront a lot of the immediate issues are, Arai is very careful of placing particular judgment or signs to help readers grasp themes too simply. Throughout these first seven volumes, loss of life occurs, as is common in real life, with no easily suggested reason. The audience is left alone to assign their own meanings to the proceedings as Arai's humanity edges closer to the edge, prepared to plunge deep into immovable and ever-present violence.