Zombies have been done to death, but have you ever seen one killed by a troupe of victorian musicians before?
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kaori Yuki
Translation/Adaptation: Camellia Nieh
What They Say
Lucille and the orchestra encounter a town overrun with the worst kind of audience: the living dead! Well, not really. They’re people who have been turned into doll-like zombies. And they are definitely not a crowd to take lightly. Can a group of roving musicians use their skills to calm the beasts? Or is this curtains for the Grand Orchestra?!
Technical
Grand Guignol Orchestra is part of Viz’s Shojo Beat imprint and it is presented like any other book in that line. There are no color pages but there seems to have been only one page that could have been, so the lack of color is a non-issue. The ink’s are solid and the images reproduce well.
Kaori Yuki’s artwork hasn’t changed much over the last ten years. Mouths have slowly slid down faces and the eyes sparkle a bit less than they used to, but no one is going to mistake this for anything but a manga aimed at girls. I hesitate to call it generic because Kaori Yuki’s been drawing in this style for so long that she probably helped originate it. As the cover of the book points out (or warns) the consumer, she’s the author of some now classic titles like Angel Sanctuary. The cover itself, at a quick glance, looks physically distressed in the dark areas framing Lucille. It’s actually a faint pattern of cobwebs that, along with the type face for the title, gives the book an ominous feel consistent with the horror story that lies within.
The translation is solid, if not a bit anachronistic when it comes to some of Kohaku’s lines. However, the story is often just as loose with mixing the paraphernalia of different times together: tanks, victorian dresses and medieval castles coexist happily on the same page.
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Victorian and gothic themed manga has seen a surge in popularity in recent years. Especially if they feature young rich boys and their sketchy servants. (Yeah, I’m looking at you Black Butler and Pandora Hearts.) Kaori Yuki was a forerunner of the latest trend when she put out the Cain series years ago. With the other recent popularity of zombies, it’s easy to tell why Viz jumped on the chance to release this series.
The story focuses on a singer named Lucille, who travels about with two fellow musicians providing a unique service for those that have the money to hire the Royal Orchestra. Orchestra is something of a misnomer, as there are only three players. The troupe traverses a world of people struggling to survive amidst a very strange zombie apocalypse. These are the disease sort of zombie, rather than the risen dead sort. The plague which infects the populace causes the victims to take on a doll-like appearance as their bodies crack and crumble, along with the usual zombie symptoms of craving human flesh.
Lucille is the lead, a beautiful singer who wears a casual grin. Gwindel is a man of few words with a pet hedgehog and a penchant for hacking up zombies. Kohaku is a rambling put-upon punk with an itchy trigger finger. They are, of course, highly mysterious and great fun to watch. We see them through the eyes of Eles, who ends up joining the group as a pianist. The story has it’s light hearted moments of comedy, usually of the slapstick sort, tucked between moments of gruesome horror. Sometimes it’s both, an early scene has a character’s mother transform with a cry of “Come here, darlings, mother’s thirsty for your blood!” The mixed-and-matched props also add to the humor, especially when a group of maids pull out some semi-automatic weapons. It’s hard to take zombies seriously for very long, even with the threat of a very gruesome death around every corner.
This first volume is split into two stories, the first introducing the world and a character which joins the troupe. The second story already begins to change what we know about how the guignol zombies operate and hints of a larger ongoing plot line involving the Royal Court. There is plenty of intrigue and secret identities come into play in both stories in this volume. The story flows pretty smoothly, with little panel confusion and few jump cuts, which I’m thankful for because the author has had trouble with that in her past series.
In Summary:
There’s real horror lurking in Grand Guignol Orchestra, between the silliness and absurdity. The detailed artwork does a good job of displaying decadence among the decay. The setting and conflict may be the usual tropes, but the fun lies in seeing the disparate set pieces come together in a new way. The characters are no slouches either, even if they seem to be cut from a familiar cloth was well. The back story for Lucille and the other troupe members hints at dark melodrama yet to be told. It’s sure to appeal to fans of gothic horror, even if you grow as tired of zombie as I do.
Content Grade: B +
Art Grade: B +
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B +
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Released Date: October 5th, 2010
MSRP: $9.99
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