manga: Kamen Tantei Vol 3-4 (end)
Jan. 22nd, 2009 12:39 pmThis is one of the-if not the-most meta manga series I have ever read. After the first volume, it’s never really clear how much of the story is reality, and how much is the world Haru and Masato create with their writing, much less how much their writing affects reality. Actually, I suspect Matsuri Akino initially intended to play it straight, and then decided she liked the “fictional detective is real and helps his creators solve mysteries” enough that she just made the intermingling of fiction and reality affect the entire series.
I really don’t think this is a bad thing at all.
Like Petshop of Horrors, this is largely an anthology series with a thin unifying plot throughout, though the unifying plot in this case is Haru and Masato’s growth as writers. Interestingly, some chapters indicate that their creation, Taro Suzuki, knows them-and what they’ll do with their lives-better than they do.
I wouldn’t mind reading more manga along the lines of this one, though I’m not sure this kind of plot could be sustained for more than a few volumes. I don’t know if Matsuri Akino ended the series because she thought it was time or if she was told to wrap it up, but I think this ended up just the right length.