Opus by Satoshi Kon

Kaylin | Academy of Allied Health and Science, Grade 10

Rating: ***

Opus tells the story of Chikara Nagai, the creator of a manga called Resonance, under pressure with his approaching deadline. All of a sudden, one of his characters comes through his novel and steals the shock ending he has planned! Nagai finds himself sucked into the own world he created, and as he loses himself deeper in his own story, it becomes harder to keep things the way they are without ruining the story forever.

Opus is a good story that tells the realistic life of a manga artist who finds himself trapped in the very story he created. One major downside to it is that it's unfinished. This is because Satoshi Kon started focusing more on his director career and never got around to finishing it, and the magazine in which it was published got canceled. This is a shame, but I honestly didn't mind, because I the story wasn't really life-changing for me. I wasn't really that engaged and I didn't really like any of the characters. That isn't to say that it's badly written, though. It's a well written, clever story with amazing art. It was action-packed and pretty fast paced. One minor question I had throughout the entire story was: if Nagai gets sucked into his own manga story, do the characters in his story also appear as manga-looking characters, or do they appear as realistic people? This is a minor plot hole that is never brought up in the story. It isn't that important, but it bothered me while reading. Opus is a good story by Satoshi Kon, an amazing manga artist and director, that I probably would've liked better if he had gotten the chance to finish it.