To The Last Page

The path of travel of a robot gaining AI intelligence had already been intimated in the first part of My Name is Shingo . Although not yet named as such, the implication is that Shingo started out “life” as 'Monroe', a construction robot at the factory where Konma’s dad works. Since the workers there know little about computer technology, Konma has helped Monroe develop self-learning capabilities. Perhaps not as much as he thinks when he starts playing with the programming, but at the same time although those changes are taking place gradually at the start of this second Perfect Collection of the series, there is clearly a long way to self-awareness yet. Funnily enough - though not if you are familiar with Umezz - his young children protagonists are embarking on a similar journey. There is a bit of a setback for Konma at the start of Volume 2, when Marin's diplomat father takes the family to England. Monroe is also behaving erratically and the factory, as might have been f...

Now 87 years old and retired for a few decades, Kazuo Umezz is considered one of the most important and influential of Japanese manga artists in the horror genre, a master recognised by current leading artists in the genre including Junji Ito , but until relatively recently little of his work has been translated into English. One feature that is becoming common now that more works are being published in the West, is the question of how children relate to the the world their parents have created for them, whether it's the apocalyptic landscapes of his masterpiece The Drifting Classroom or the legacy faced by a child twisted by her mother's complex with her appearance in Baptism . The first volume of My Name is Shingo , now being published by Viz, is another major Umezz work that points in the same direction. The subject that influences 12 year old Satoru Konma and sets him apart from his parents appears to be their relationship to new technology, but inevitably the situation is...

Published in France, but not yet in the UK or the US, Baptism  ( Senrei ) is a later work from Kazuo Umezz (Umezu in France), the author/artist of the 1974 end of the world monster horror epic The Drifting Classroom . Created in 1995, Baptism is also a little more refined and paced while still retaining the character of Umezz's classic manga art style. Just as importantly, the story also manages to take a classic horror trope as its basis and do something entirely different with it; a Frankenstein-like science experiment, a body-swap horror that has a typically sinister twist. A famous movie actress from the olden days, Izumi Wakakusa has retired at the height of her career, terrified that the make-up she wears will no longer be able to mask the horrible disfigurement that she bears down one side of her face. She leaves the world of cinema and becomes a mother, devoted to her daughter Sakura. In fact, she may even be a little over-protective. We soon find out why. The only reason ...

Kazuo Umezz started his professional career as a comic artist in the 1950s. Now aged 85, he continues working in the medium up to the present day, and is something of a personality in his native Japan. Little of his work has been published in English (although there is more to come and more if you look for French and Italian editions), but his classic 1974 serial The Drifting Classroom that made him famous is at least available in English translation and published by Viz Media in three bulky Perfect Edition hardback volumes. It's an incredible piece of work that stands as one of the all-time classics of Japanese manga. The Drifting Classroom 's themes are similar in content and style to the early works of the modern horror master Junji Ito, while from a western perspective being reminiscent of the dark horror artwork of Charles Burns. Umezz's naive cartoony artwork however is closest to style of the master Osamu Tezuka. Umezz started his career in that era and continued to...