Animania

Calling You started life as a Japanese light novel anthology, written by Otsuichi (pen name of Hirotaka Adachi). Published in Japan on May 31, 2001, it contains three short stories centered around friendships with a supernatural twist: Calling You, Kiz/Kids, and Flower Song. In December 2003, Setsuri Tsuzuki created a manga adaptation that contained the first two stories. Both the novel and the manga were licensed for release by Tokyopop, who released the manga first then the novel. I ordered them together, but the manga ended up arriving first, so I ended up reading them in the same order Tokyopop released them. I'll discuss both versions here, novel first then manga.

In the titular story, Calling You, high school freshman Ryo receives a random call from a boy named Shinya, only the phone that rings is her imaginary cell phone and Shinya is calling from his own imaginary phone! They strike up an unusual friendship, through Ryo is able to find her voice and begin talking in the real world again. Tragedy strikes, however, when the two finally decide they want to meet. Calling You has an unusual premise and is beautifully done. Though I normally abhor first-person point of view, I couldn't help being drawn into this story. Ryo's painful shyness from being unable to tell when people are being dishonest with their words, is palpable. Though short, the five chapter story packs in a lot of story and emotional punch. The ending was both sad and hopeful, though I wish it had taken the Il Mare route with Shinya.

The second story is Kiz/Kids, in which an unnamed boy is put in the special class at school because he attacked a classmate for picking on the burn on his back. The boy, however, has a good heart and primarily lashes out in violence out of seeing injustice or someone talking bad about his parents, even though his father abused him and his mother abandoned him. In the class, he meets Asato, a quiet boy who rarely talks after his mother murdered his father and tried to kill him. While alone with Asato after school, the boy hurts himself carving. Asato comes over and touches him, and half the wound leaves the boy's arm and moves to Asato's. It is an amazing secret, of course, and as their friendship grows, the boy comes to realize that Asato is taking on the wounds because he feels unwanted and wants to die. Kiz/Kids is a heart wrenching story, and its tough reading about these two children who have been abused, neglected, and overlooked all of their life and who deserve so much better. Neither are bad children, and while the boy says Asato has a pure heart, he doesn't realize that he does as well, in his own way. It is interesting that the boy is given no name through out the five chapters, though it may be indicative of how little the two are noticed that no one says it in his few interactions with adults. Still, this one, like the first, has an ending that is both sad and hopeful, but this one is more hopeful than Calling You.

Flower Song is the final, and perhaps trippiest, of all the stories. A woman is put in a mental hospital after a train accident that kills her lover and their unborn child, and also leaves her unable to have children ever again. She is put in a room with two men, Nakagawa and Haruki. Miserable, and depressed, the woman contemplates suicide until she discovers a singing flower with a human face. She takes it to their room and at first hides it from her roommates, but they noticed the singing and she eventually shares the secret with them. As they care for the flower and are soothed by her humming, their own mental wounds begin to heal, especially the woman's. They eventually learn the tragic past of a former patient, Misaki, who killed herself at the hospital at the tree where the flower was found. When released, the woman is determined to take Misaki back to the home she loved. Flower Song is the oddest of the three stories for a few reasons. The first, of course, is a flower with a human face and hair singing. :P The patient being a woman is also an unexpected revelation, considering she has two male roommates. The patient's thoughts as she sorts through her feelings of being hated by her family, her anger and blame towards them for their not accepting her lover and forcing them to elope that she feels is the reason he died, and her growing feelings towards the flower. The finale wraps things up very beautifully, though, and while we don't know how the patient will handle life, there is a sense of hope that she has gained some new internal strength through her association with the flower girl.

The Calling You novel is a very well done piece, with all three stories having similar themes, but presented in interesting and unique ways, though the first one is very reminiscent of one of my favorite Japanese movies Il Mare (mentioned above). Otsuichi has a way with words and for making first person point of view not seem so hideously bad, and Tokyopop's translation of the novel is very well done. Having said that, though, I must say Tsuzuki's manga adaptation, containing only the first two stories, is a very pale imitation to the original. I can see why Otsuichi says he "screamed" several times while reading it. Tsuzuki's makes many changes to the stories, some small (like changing names or giving the Boy from Kiz/Kids a name), and many big (such as Shinya being changed to a handicapped boy who can't talk). A lot of scenes are also redone, and not for the better. While the manga isn't completely hideous, but it does come up short. Perhaps if I hadn't read the novel, I could have fully enjoyed it, but I think I still would have seem some of the issues with it regarding holes that the novel does a better job of filling.

Novel Grade: A+
Manga Grade: B-