Sorako
by Takayuki Fujimura
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Short stories about Sorako: an aimless slacker, who is bored and dissatisfied with her current situation. Normally this would be the premise of a story where the character slowly comes into her own, finds ways to be satisfied with her situation… Or, you know… Do anything. She doesn’t (do anything, that is).
This comic could be construed as a character study, but I would argue that it just doesn’t go very deep. It’s not particularly moving, I don’t think it feels like a commentary on society. So, I have to judge this based on story and art.
Story-wise, it’s nothing special. Short vignettes, that don’t really go anywhere.
Art-wise this is a fair comic. I appreciate the heavy use of cross-hatching to create texture and shading over screen tones. There were still “screen tones”, but they were laid with computer rather than sheets. However, this is one of the few titles that a CG screen tone didn’t annoy the heck out of me. Each story seems to display slightly different art style as though several people were working on this — or possibly, the author is still trying to decide on their own unique style. It was interesting, but a little too obvious at times.
I originally read this title because of reading Anomal, also published by Gen. I was incredibly disappointed with the translation of the title. I really really wanted to like the publisher. I will admit that this translation is far far far superior to that other title… But, I’m still not overly impressed.
There is one more title by Gen that a friend highly recommends, which I’ll try before officially saying, “sayonara” to works by this publisher.
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