The suicide paradise

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The Suicide Paradise ( Japanese 童 夢 , Dōmu ; literally "child [s] dream") is a manga by Katsuhiro Otomo from the early 1980s about a series of mysterious deaths in a modern, Japanese residential complex. After Dōmu was completed , Otomo began working on Akira .

Publication history

Dōmu was initially published as a sequel story in four parts from January 19, 1980 to July 6, 1981 in the manga magazine Action Deluxe ( ア ク シ ョ ン デ ラ ッ ク ス ), a sister magazine of Weekly Manga Action ( WEEKLY 漫画 ア ク シ ョ ン ) published by Futabasha ( 双 葉 社 ) . In 1983 the manga was published as an edited anthology by Otomo. This edition proved to be a great success: over 500,000 copies were sold, and in the same year the anthology won the coveted Nihon SF Taishō ( 日本 SF 大 賞 ), the first time that a manga received the association's once-a-year prize Japanese science fiction and fantasy authors ( 日本 SF 作家 ク ラ ブ , Nihon-SF-Sakka-kurabu ) received. In 1984 Dōmu also received the Seiun Prize . This sensational success has made Otomo one of the most popular mangaka in Japan.

Dōmu was repeatedly updated in Japan until 2007. The visual language of the manga inspired many young draftsmen, including Taiyō Matsumoto , who, after reading the comic, made the decision to become a mangaka himself. Director Guillermo del Toro has expressed several years of intent to film the story. However, according to his own statements, he has not yet been able to implement this project due to legal difficulties, which Otomo confirmed.

action

In modern Tsutsumi multi- storey apartment buildings , at the beginning of the story (around 1978), unexplained deaths accumulate, of which at this point there were already five suicides , three murders, five accidents and nine with unknown causes. They started two years ago, but there is no real explanation for this. While the police intensified their investigations without success, another suicide occurs: one of the police officers falls from a roof, which in the investigation turns out to be practically and physically impossible, as there could not have been enough time. His handgun is also missing. The deaths remain a mystery, the only thing that seems to bind the victims together is the lack of a personal item from their legacy.

One night, inspector Yamagawa, who was in charge of the case, was lured onto the roof of the apartment complex by a mysterious voice. There he is awaited by old Chojiro Ujida, who is only known as the senile old man Cho in the everyday life of the residents , but now floats above the ground with superhuman strength and is hung with a myriad of objects that he has taken from his victims. Smiling, he kills the completely perplexed inspector, whose death later also looks like a suicide.

A short time later, the old man Cho is again sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the residential complex and smiles to himself as he tries to use his telekinetic powers to drop an infant several floors. However, this is thwarted by little Etsuko, a girl who has recently moved into the residential complex with her mother, who obviously has powers similar to Cho. Etsuko scolds Cho, who remains mute, for being naughty. Because her mother calls her over, Etsuko, relatively unimpressed by the encounter, leaves. Cho remains extremely worried and sweating heavily.

The case is being taken over by Inspector Okamura, who is assisted by the young Takayama, who in turn worked on the case under Yamagawa. Before Okamura has the case explained to him, the ghost of Yamagawa appears to him at the Tsutsumi residential complex and a mysterious voice orders him never to come back.

Around the same time, Etsuko befriends some children in the residential complex. When Etsuko suggests playing with a boy named Hiroshi Yoshikawa, they refuse because his single father is an unemployed and violent alcoholic and her parents think he is a bad influence. However, Etsuko later meets Hiroshi alone and they both play together, later even as a threesome, when the adult, but mentally retarded and gigantic Yo (Yoshio Fujiyama) joins them.

A little later, another inexplicable death occurs: Cho makes Tsutomu Sasaki, who has been trying in vain for three years to pass the entrance exam for college, to cut his own throat with a box knife in front of Etsuko's eyes when she was just for her mother goes to get cigarettes. Etsuko is so furious that she destroys the window in Cho's apartment with a scream. Shocked by this experience, Etsuko remains after the incident, initially under sedatives, in the clinic of the residential complex. The following night, Cho hands Hiroshi's father the handgun of the policeman who allegedly threw himself off the roof earlier.

After Okamura talked to Takayama about belief in ghosts and Takayama himself saw the ghost of Yamagawa at the scene of the alleged suicide of Tsutomu Sasaki, Takayama, out of a hunch, seeks out Professor Kaneko, who is considered an expert on Japanese shamanism and supernatural phenomena. Kaneko refers Takayama to the medium Noriko Nonomura.

At that time, a police officer was investigating Cho's home because of the broken window. He finds it completely empty, except for a ring that belonged to one of the victims.

Just as Takayama and Nonomura want to go to the apartment complex together, a telekinetic fight takes place between Etsuko and Cho, which Nonomura obviously notices and therefore flees in fear, warning Takayama in a panic that many more people are going to die and that he should get up take care of the children. Meanwhile, Etsuko stopped the fight because her mother yelled at her to go back to the hospital bed. Cho is, sweating heavily and panting, very exhausted and exhausted from the argument.

There is soon an apparent showdown between Etsuko and Cho, which he initiates by taking control of Hiroshi's father. So one night he runs amok, kills a little boy with the gun of the dead policeman and then goes to the clinic to shoot Etsuko. She can defend herself with her own strength, but when Hiroshi and Yo appear, Hiroshi's father shoots Yo in the brief moment of surprise. After Etsuko switched off Hiroshi's father for a short time, she teleported to the roof where Cho was. In response to her reproaches (which she pronounces to a naughty little child) about his behavior, he sticks out his tongue and flees over and through the blocks. She is chasing him. During the hunt, the telekinetic forces of both break some windows and railings, but none of the residents notice the real cause. Meanwhile, special police forces form in front of the clinic, waiting for Hiroshi's father to run out of ammunition.

In the clinic, Hiroshi's father is able to get up again and shoots his son, making Yo so angry that he runs amok and kills Hiroshi's father despite another bullet wound by ramming his head several times against the wall. Yo's anger now knows no boundaries and he also turns against the police officers who are storming the clinic. Meanwhile, the duel between Cho and Etsuko continues to intensify on the roofs, creating a strong wind on the ground.

At the same time, the policeman who found the ring, along with Takayama and his colleague Ito, go to Cho's home again. This is no longer empty, but overflowing with lots of odds and ends .

On the roof, Cho challenges Etsuko by turning on the gas pipes throughout the residential complex. Etsuko can still prevent the worst by destroying many windows and thereby allowing the gas to flow out of the apartments, but just as Yo meets Takayama and Ito and has already thrown the other police officer over the parapet, the floor there explodes. Cho, laughing maliciously at first and looking forward to the failure of Etsuko like a child, feels the anger of Etsuko, who bursts into tears, whose powers are now seriously dangerous to him for the first time. He flees in panic while behind him all the components of the building break, bend or explode as if by an enormous force. In the resulting chaos, Yo also dies when an entire part of the building collapses. When Etsuko stops Cho at the end, she presses him against a wall with her screams in such a way that a huge dent is created there, into which Cho's body is pressed. Eventually the wall breaks and Cho is thrown into a corridor where two firefighters are already on rescue duty. Cho flees in a panic. When one of the firefighters approaches Etsuko to calm her down, her scream tears him apart, then his colleagues suffer the same fate, which Cho sees with a look over his shoulder. In the end, Etsuko's condition causes more and more massive damage, so that even the rescue units flee (although they do not know the cause). She only regains her composure when her mother sees her and calls for her. With this the destruction of the night ends.

After two weeks, the police, chaired by Okamura, hold a press conference. The earthquake theory up until then advocated by the police is rejected; Okamura indicates that Hiroshi's father once worked as a gas fitter in the past, which the journalists present immediately see as a guilty verdict. Meanwhile, a colleague of Takayama shows him the evidence room of the district, in which all of Cho's belongings are collected. This also includes the cap of Inspector Yamagawa's fountain pen .

The interrogation of the senile Cho by Okamura does not help the investigation, the old man only tells stories from his childhood. Ultimately, Takayama wants to try his luck again at the interrogation while his colleagues all go to dinner. But when he opens the door to the interrogation room, he sees a night scene on the roof of a skyscraper with Inspector Yamagawa standing on the edge and looking at him directly before jumping into the depths. Hiroshi's father hangs on the railing, laughing scornfully. When a colleague approaches Takayama, who had gone to buy caramel for Cho , the illusion has disappeared. What you can see is the interrogation room in which Cho is sitting at a table and having fun with a toy car.

When Cho is released from custody, Takayama Okamura asks to be allowed to observe Cho a little longer, although there is no well-founded suspicion, which he is granted. The reader also learns that Etsuko's parents have now moved to Kyoto with her .

One day, while Takayama is sitting on a bench in the courtyard of the Tsutsumi residential complex near Cho, Etsuko re-enters the scene and quietly sits down on a swing. Takayama doesn't notice this (probably because Etsuko is relatively far away from Cho and Takayama), but Cho is appalled with fear. Another duel of the telekinetic powers between Cho and Etsuko begins, this time relatively little breaks compared to the last time, but this is noticed by Takayama. When he gets up and takes a few steps, some force makes a small cut on his cheek. Meanwhile Cho is under great tension or pain, finally he gets up one last time and then collapses motionless on the bench. Takayama can only determine his death. The last panel shows a bird's eye view of the empty, slightly demolished swing on which Etsuko sat, as well as the closer environment in which a boy is standing who is pointing to the swing and calling out to his mother that the girl has disappeared, the one just now still sat there.

expenditure

Internationally, Dōmu often appeared in three parts rather than four, as in Japan. No anthology was published in Germany. The current editions are listed below in various languages.

German
English
French

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Preface to Domu ™: A Child's Dream (translated by Dana Lewis and Toren Smith ). Dark Horse Comics , 1996 Milwaukee 1 . ISBN 1-56971-140-2 .
  2. ↑ Jaqueline Berndt : Phenomenon Manga . edition q, Berlin 1995. p. 187. ISBN 3-86124-289-3 .
  3. ↑ Profile on artbomb.net - English
  4. ^ David Server: Interview: Guillermo del Toro. countingdown.com, May 1, 2002, archived from the original on January 12, 2008 ; accessed on August 30, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Katsuhiro Otomo in an interview with Kuriko Sato on midnighteye.com, December 29, 2006 - English.

Web links