manhwa: The Tarot Cafe Vol 1-2
Oct. 2nd, 2008 05:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreI have a bit of an odd history with this manhwa. Well, not odd, maybe. The manhwaga, Sang-Sun Park, was the artist of Les Bijoux, one of the first manhwa I ever read. The art was so amazing that it actually took me a while to notice how incredibly weird (yet compelling) the plot was. If I ever find my copies of Les Bijoux (they went missing when I moved, along with Mars, Petshop of Horrors and some random other things) I will reread it and post on it. I’ve been meaning to anyway for a while. Anyway, a bit after that Tokyopop started putting out The Tarot Café, a manhwa about an immortal woman named Pamela who does tarot readings out of her café, and I bought it faithfully. And then it suddenly stopped coming out. And then several other series I was reading stopped coming out even though they weren’t finished, and in a fit of annoyance, I got rid of them all. Naturally, most have since been completed, if not always by the same publisher, including The Tarot Café. But by the same publisher.
Much of the setup is common for the Mysterious Shopkeeper genre. The early stories are self-contained, and focused more on the customers than the main characters. It isn’t until we get to the end of volume two that we start to see into the past of Pamela, whose mother was burned as a witch in the 13th century. Belus, an old acquaintance (and possibly more) of Pamela’s who seems to know more about what’s going on in the bigger picture than she does, remains a complete enigma. The only main character whose complete story is known (as far as we know at this point) is that of Aaron, a young werewolf who works for Pamela. Even his story, though, is a tool to introduce Nebiros, a man who is even more of an enigma than Belus. Then there’s Ash, a young man who may or may not be the reincarnation (or original incarnation) of the man who originally made Pamela immortal.
While most series in this genre seem to deal-at least initially-with people who have a fatal flaw, or who have a sin to make amends for, Pamela’s customers tend to be people who have loved too intensely, or who didn’t appreciate love enough when they had it. Each of the contained stories is, in some fashion, a love story, be it tragic, bittersweet, or happy. In addition, the themes of the stories are very strongly based on fairy tale tropes. Not the Disney versions, but the older, darker kind little girls don’t know about when they say they want a fairy tale wedding. In addition to the intensity of love and not appreciating the love you have, reincarnation, loss and creation are all pretty heavy themes, not to mention eternal devotion peeking its head out. Having read a little beyond this point, I remember them also being a factor in the larger scheme of Pamela and Belus’s lives and history, themes that are already starting to show up here.
Beautiful, a bit surreal, with interesting themes and mythology, and only seven volumes!
Much of the setup is common for the Mysterious Shopkeeper genre. The early stories are self-contained, and focused more on the customers than the main characters. It isn’t until we get to the end of volume two that we start to see into the past of Pamela, whose mother was burned as a witch in the 13th century. Belus, an old acquaintance (and possibly more) of Pamela’s who seems to know more about what’s going on in the bigger picture than she does, remains a complete enigma. The only main character whose complete story is known (as far as we know at this point) is that of Aaron, a young werewolf who works for Pamela. Even his story, though, is a tool to introduce Nebiros, a man who is even more of an enigma than Belus. Then there’s Ash, a young man who may or may not be the reincarnation (or original incarnation) of the man who originally made Pamela immortal.
While most series in this genre seem to deal-at least initially-with people who have a fatal flaw, or who have a sin to make amends for, Pamela’s customers tend to be people who have loved too intensely, or who didn’t appreciate love enough when they had it. Each of the contained stories is, in some fashion, a love story, be it tragic, bittersweet, or happy. In addition, the themes of the stories are very strongly based on fairy tale tropes. Not the Disney versions, but the older, darker kind little girls don’t know about when they say they want a fairy tale wedding. In addition to the intensity of love and not appreciating the love you have, reincarnation, loss and creation are all pretty heavy themes, not to mention eternal devotion peeking its head out. Having read a little beyond this point, I remember them also being a factor in the larger scheme of Pamela and Belus’s lives and history, themes that are already starting to show up here.
Beautiful, a bit surreal, with interesting themes and mythology, and only seven volumes!