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Today's review concerns a short manga I found while perusing FFTranslations, a site I like to frequent for my Fatal Frame research needs, as the owner has graciously translated many guidebooks, articles, and even light novels for not only the FF series but for other series too like Siren and recently Catherine. This manga chapter I've chosen is actually a scanlation for a side chapter in the first Siren game's manga adaptation, Call of the Red Sea. Sadly, the manga itself has gone into hiatus, but the few chapters up are quite good.
The main story was done by Shin Mimibukuro Atmos, and due to the author's health, it hasn't gone beyond chapter 7, but this chapter we have today, "Tamon Takeuchi's Research Notes" was written by Tsutomu Sakai and drawn by Shinya Iiboshi, and released last october in 2016.
Now the story is a pretty good standalone, though it does assume you actually know a little about Siren as its a backstory spin off about Tamon Takeuchi and Yoriko Anno's "first" encounter. If you haven't played Siren, its really not that hard to understand what's going on, as its a pretty cut and dry mystery/horror/ghost story, with a professor of folklore protagonist and his somewhat bumbling student.
Its really interesting to see Tamon before the game starts, though its not anything you didn't know from playing the game. Intensely interested in dark rituals and secret sacrificial ceremonies, he's given information about a village that might be related to Hanuda, the village that the game will eventually take place in. As a prequel of sorts, you know that anything involving Hanuda is going to be dark and hidden away, though the village and house he and Yoriko end up traveling to bear no resemblance or real connection to the village in the game. They do seem to have a dark ritual of sorts, and Tamon aims to get information about it. He's sort of an Indiana Jones mixed with Seijiro Makabe, with only a LITTLE doomed destiny when it comes to haunted japanese villages. Add a little 6th sense and ability to see ghosts and you got a "yokai hunter". Kinda. XD
Yoriko, as she does in the game, kind of invites herself along by hiding in her professor's car and is along for the ride, quite literally. Simply put, where Tamon is a folklorist with immense knowledge and cunning, Yoriko is quite bluntly an air-head, with an unrequited crush on her dreamy prof, and head full of lofty shojo manga ideals, as well as obscure pop culture that actually help her not only solve the mystery in this story, but also end up helping her in the game. I like Yoriko; she's a little bit of an airhead, and she's got strange habits and interests, but this bubbly personality actually ends up becoming endearing. Its what keeps her sane in the end parts of the game, and also what endears her as an "older sister" type to Kyoya in end game. She's not the type to really stay put or follow orders, but she's not the type to leave people when they need it, and is caring and responsible when she needs to be.
I won't give too much away with the story, but when Tamon, unknowingly with Yoriko in the backseat, nearly hits a phantom child, and after seeing terrible visions, the pair end up in a mother's house in an abandoned village, where he questions the mother about the local folklore, namely "Koshigoe" or "Pass of Dead Children". Things take a turn for the worse when Tamon gets too close to the source of the rumors of sacrificed children, and learn that desperate parents will do anything for their children, no matter how far gone. The chapter ends suitably like a horror manga, as well as establishing the relationship between Yoriko and Tamon, a sort of match made in Hanuda. XD Without his quick thinking, or Yoriko's knowledge of an old tv show, this mystery could have ended quite differently.
In any case, this manga is pretty good as a stand alone. The art's a little rough, but it adds to the horror flavor nicely. Its a shame the rest of the manga may not be completed but it does make one yearn to play the game. I totally recommend the manga as well as the rest of the site, since it has invaluable information from guidebooks to some pretty good games (my recommendation is the prequel/side novel to Catherine, The Mysterious Tale of Rapunzel). Click here for the link to the manga page, and download the manga translations. Enjoy!
Recommended!
--Dio (10/9/17)
Images and translations by FFTranslations.com.
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