Of Swords and Parasols

The individual stories about Hiruko’s customers continue along the same vein. I continue to be fondest of the ones directly tied to the time period. More post-war trauma dreams, please!

The main story, though, about Hiruko and Mizuki and Hiruko’s past, seems to be picking up steam. And acquiring Clamp-like angst.

( spoilers )

Hiruko is a baku, a demon who eats dreams, in Japan’s taisho era. He operates out of the Silver Star Tea House, and seems to be its only regular customer. The pretty owner seems to blame this on him, but not hold it against him, even though people tend to run into her shop waving knives around. For the price of the dream itself, Hiruko will cure a customer of whatever nightmares plague them, though he may make the dream a little nastier before her does, just to make it taste a little better when he eats it. In this volume, we have silent film stars committing suicide in their fans’ dreams, inanimate objects coming to life so they can hug their owners, people losing body parts that represent enemies, and others.

I was a little bit surprised when I started reading and realized Hiruko was a guy. I…uhm…thought he looked like a girl from the cover, and when I quickly flipped through it at the store. Certainly doesn’t act like one, though. Like most of the “mysterious shopkeeper/deal maker who is part of the supernatural world” he seems to operate in a mostly gray zone. (One day, I should figure out why I seem to grab almost every one of these series I see.) He carries a cane that he uses to open portals into the dream world, and to whack people with knives who go after the as-yet-unnamed waitress. She is either a very tolerant girl, or up to something herself. That, or the shop is her nightmare. Or something. When he goes after dreams, he also has a suitcase that he hangs from the cane, but there’s no clue about what that’s for yet.

The taisho setting, I admit, is one of the appeals for me, though in terms of plot, it’s really only come into play in the chapter about the silent film star, and when the waitress was in awe of a customer who had his own telephone. Visually, though, it adds a great flavor to the book. Come to think of it, outside of Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, I can’t think of any manga set in that period, and most of FY: GK takes place in a fantasy ancient China anyway.

Anyone know of any other manga set in the period, out of curiosity?