Manga Tuesday; Eternal Sabbath

Manga:  Eternal Sabbath

Written by:  Fuyumi Soryo

Genres: Sience Fiction, Drama, Thriller, Seinen, (Tragedy)

Volumes:  8

Anime: no

own/ library/ borrowed/ read online

completed/ ongoing

publisher:  Kodansha and Del Rey Manga

Summary: 

ES (Eternal Sabbath) is a gene developed by a group of scientists who sought immortality. The presence of the gene grants the carrier up to 200 years of life immune from all viruses. Though the scientists' original intention was to demonstrate the feasibility of eternal life, ES unexpectedly has the additional power of mind-control and memory-alteration.A female neurology professor, Mine Kujo, meets a man by the name of Ryosuke Akiba and discovers that he is a genetically-engineered human with the ES gene. Together, they pursue a more dangerous ES-carrier who had escaped from the research center.source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ES_(Eternal_Sabbath)

Review:

I came across this manga a few times but every time I refused to read it because it's sci-fi and it's seinen. But finally I decided to read it because a friend lend a few volumes to me and of course I wanted to know how it ended, so I continued reading.

This manga starts with a chapter which is written out of ES product 1: Shuro or how he will be known later Ryosuke Akiba. This chapter is utterly important to understand the rest of the story but you won't notice until later. Anyway, after this chapter the story will be written from the perspective of Mine Kujo. Mine is a neurology professor and researcher who doesn't notice anything besides her work until she gets involved in the world of the Eternal Sabbath, an out of control science project. This science project revolves around Shuro and Izaku, both made out of this gene ES. But while Shuro (ES1) is build to live, Izaku (ES2) is build to sacrifice. However, what the scientists don't know, is that Shuro and Izaku have the ability to read minds and control them. This is why they escape. It may sound like Shuro and Izaku are like brothers, but they are not. Shuro plans this and Izaku simply copies his manners on the day Shuro tries to escape and even tries to kill him. Anyway with the ability to control mind Shuro gets into a family and pretends to be their long lost grandson Akiba Ryosuke. Meanwhile Izaku is busy killing everyone who he thinks deserves to die and one of the scientists, Sakaki, in the old lab is trying to catch him. Sakaki and Mine are not affected by the mind control methods of Shuro and Izaku, there are some people like that. Later they get Shuro/Akiba to help them and together they try to fight Izaku, but they lose a lot of people along the way.

It's a complicated and a bit of a sad story but really beautiful and very different from what I normally read. Sometimes the art was really pretty, though I was troubled by the fact that if the characters where drawn from the front the forehead was to small and the eyes to far apart from each other. The eyes also tended to derp sometimes, but well you get used to it I guess. The story seemed to lead a quite logical path, though the end was a bit of a cliché, but actually I was glad that happened :) otherwise it would have been too sad! This kind of stories are still not my kind of story, it's gives me a weird kind of feeling in my stomach, and I don't really like that kind of feeling, but still for this kind of story it was really good. It kind of reminds me of Death Note, with Izaku being Light, but then viewed form a more psychological point of view and the other side (let's call it the L side).

Rating:

3.5 stars

Some things about manga for non-manga readers :P :

Manga is a Japanese cartoon or comic. There are lots of them in all kind of different genres (really from porn to manga for little girls). Of most mangas there is a new chapter released every month, so that's why some are ongoing (it also can be that the translation group is a bit slow. DON'T EVER GET ANGRY BECAUSE OF THAT THOUGH! Manga's are translated by volunteers, and not very much people speak both English and Japanese well enough to translate them. If your bothered by it, join such a group! They are always looking for new members! Also editors and cleaners are needed!).

If you are too lazy to read, of most mangas there is an anime to watch ;)

If you consider reading manga pay attention! Manga is written from right to left!

some terms:

Shoujo= Manga for mostly teenage girls (it can be very childish, it can be really mature)

Shounen= Manga for mostly teenage boys (example: Naruto )

Josei= Manga for older women (the manga site says: late teenage and adult audiences, this is usually because the characters in the manga are not in high school anymore, this doesn't mean it's not fun to read if you are younger)

Seinen= Manga for older men (also for late teenage and adult audiences, also usually fun to read if you're younger)

School life= is sometimes quite interesting because the japanese school life seems very different than what I am used to

Shoujoai= girls love

Shounenai= boys love

Yuri = let's just say: the more advanced version of girls love

Yaoi= the more advanced version of boys love