Hail Bacchus! God of Wine! Can you do something for those poor souls who wish to learn about wine, but only through reading a graphic novel? Who find the dense and complex terminology used by professional wine critics insufferable? You can? Thank you, oh most beneficent lord of vino. Hail Bacchus!
Creative Staff:
Story: Tadashi Agi
Art: Shu Okimoto
Translation: Kate Robinson
What They Say:
When world-renowned wine critic Kanzaki passes away, his will reveals that his fortune of a wine collection isn’t bequeathed as a matter of course to his only son, who in a snub went to work sales at a beer company. To come into the inheritance, Shizuku must identify—in competition with a stellar young wine critic—twelve heaven-sent wines whose impressions the will describes in flowing terms.
Technical:
To begin with, each volume in the series is a double-volume, the first one clocking in at 424 pages, containing the contents of the first two Japanese collected volumes. While slightly heavier than your usual manga volume, it is still able to be held in a single hand, if not quite as comfortably. The binding is sturdy and strong, very necessary for a book of this thickness. The cover is on slightly glossy paper, necessary for the color image. Unlike the Japanese cover for the first volume, which is very dramatic and full of various colors, the Vertical cover is much more restrained, being tritone (the only colors are white, green, and a dark burgundy red). We are presented with a picture of the main character, Shizuku, looking at a bottle of wine, and yet angled so that he is looking at us, the reader, as well, with a certain wariness and caution. It seems to portend “Serious Business.”
The work is printed on good quality paper stock, with a reassuring stiffness and thickness. The printing itself is very well done, no signs of smudges or off-centered reproduction anywhere. The lines are crisp, clear, and clean. Some pages are not simple black and white, but are in greyscale and may have originally been color pages (I do not know for certain, for I have not seen the Japanese edition physically, only images of its covers). The print quality is very good, but color would have been much richer, though I do not fault Vertical at all for not having that done, since it would have been very expensive to arrange that, driving up the price of the product significantly. The lettering is crisp, clear, and clean as well, no noticeable typos or mistakes coming to my notice. Japanese sounds effects are retained, with discreetly placed translations in a very small, but readable, font located nearby. The translation itself reads very well. While I cannot comment on its accuracy, as English it reads both grammatically and more importantly in a flowing manner that keeps the reader’s interest, avoiding any kind of stilted or awkward phrasing.
Okimoto’s art is done in a quite realistic style, fitting the content and the nature of the characters, who are all adults with nary a young teenager in sight. Only occasionally are there departures from realism, making use of common devices to express emotions or tone, such as adding animal ears or comical faces that resemble masks more than true human faces. These departures should not in any way be particularly off-putting or disruptive for those new to manga, and for long-time readers of Japanese graphic novels they will not only seem natural but will be expected. The characters are also all quite distinct; we do not have the feeling of “same face, different hair color/style” that infects far too many works, though those are usually aimed at a younger and less discerning audience than this work, which is published in a magazine aimed at young men (seinen).
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Wine is serious business, very serious business in the real world, a multibillion dollar industry that spans the world. It is also a beverage that cuts across all levels of class and income, though that can be culturally specific. In the United States, beer is the more common alcoholic drink of choice, but in Europe, wine has had pride of place in many lands, and in Asia it has seen a rise in its popularity. Speaking of that rise in interest, there are many who would say that Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto’s 2004 and ongoing work Kami no Shizuku, translated literally as The Drops of God, is one of the reasons why wine has taken off in Asia. Even Decanter magazine, a wine publication, called it one of the most influential wine publications of the past 20 years. There are many wine publications out there, even just in English, so that is quite a statement. What does The Drops of God have that many of them do not?
In a word, drama. There is a strong dramatic flair to the story and its telling that drive the reader to want to read more. Now. I want to know now what happens next.
The story is actually quite simple, deceptively so. Shizuku Kanzaki (his first name is “drops” of liquid, just as in the title, though the title only refers to him in a secondary way, we shall get to the primary reference of the title later), is a handsome young man who works for Taiyo Beer, a large beer producer and distributor in Tokyo. While he seems to have an amazing knowledge of how to treat and handle wine (our introduction to him comes when he decants a bottle of wine in a most flamboyant and theatrical manner), he apparently has no real knowledge of the drink, deliberately so. He is the son of a famous wine critic, Yutaka Kanzaki, who seems to have raised young Shizuku in a very eccentric manner, forcing him to learn all sorts of different smells and tastes and wine-handling skills. After the death of Shizuku’s mother, Yutaka appears not to have shown much affection for his son, being more devoted to wine and the strange upbringing he forced upon the young boy, than showing tender affection. This turned off young Shizuku from developing any love for wine, and as soon as he could, he went far away from his father.
Only his father’s death brings Shizuku back into contact with the world of wine. Yutaka had a veritable fortune in liquid gold, collecting rare and expensive wines from across the world for decades. It would be worth millions by itself, but having been the collection of a world-famous wine critic, it would draw monied collectors from around the globe if sold at auction. This inheritance, however, will not go to Shizuku easily. Yutaka, for reasons which we can only piece together ourselves from the paltry hints given so far, has decided that his son must fight for his inheritance. To that end, he has set up a contest after his death: in order to gain the inheritance, one must identify 12 special wines which Yutaka felt embodied 12 important facets of wine, 12 vital parts of what makes it such a unique substance to consume. The wines has has named the 12 Apostles. On top of that, a thirteenth wine must then be recognized, a wine that embodies all that wine has to offer us in this life, a wine which Yutaka has dubbed “the drops of God.” The only clues left are written descriptions left by Yutaka, which are tone poems–impressionistic, visual, more concerned with leaving a feeling or a memory than describing what the actual taste of the wine is like. As if this, for a novice wine drinker like Shizuku, would not be hard enough, in his dying days, Yutaka adopted as his legal son a young and rising wine critic, Issei Tomine, providing Shizuku with a seemingly unbeatable opponent.
The two would-be heirs of Yutaka are a study in deliberate contrasts, in both appearance and personality. Where Shizuku is light (we are even told his hair is dyed, so in this case the lighter color is true and the common convention of assigning different hair colors just to be able to tell characters apart is not in force, and most characters have real, i.e. jet black, hair) and casual, Tomine is dark and all too serious. Were this story to be animated, it would be all too easy to imagine the voices that would be cast in either Japanese or English. Tomine has the clear advantage in experience and knowledge, as he has drunk hundreds, if not thousands, of different wines while Shizuku has barely begun to experience the divine liquid.
They have a year to discover all thirteen wines, so the story is not in a rush. That is because this work is not merely an account of a contest between two determined individuals. Shizuku must learn about wine, and so the work is also intent on teaching the reader about wine. On that score, the work does so in a very subtle, and I believe successful, manner. The reader is slowly introduced to the important basics of what makes wine so special, and what make a particular wine special in relation to other wines. Wine terms are introduced in a natural manner in the course of drinking and learning from others about wine. The work does not talk down to the uninitiated, but instead tries to bring them into the conversation. It also introduces some of the complex and almost arcane lingo that wine connoisseurs use, but without forcing it down the throats of the reader. You have it there in front of you, to learn, or ignore, as you please. What is vitally important is pressed into you, but nothing more.
As one should expect from this story, as it involves a novice with no prior training, Shizuku is given a mentor to help guide him. Actually, he is given a constellation of mentors who gently guide him down the road to vintage wisdom. His constant companion, but not in that sense, at least not yet, is Miyabi Shinohara, an apprentice sommelier, a wine steward. While she has excellent book smarts, being able to rattle off the names of famous chateaux and domaines across the world, she lacks deep experience with the smells and tastes of fine wine. The two of them are thrown together by circumstances, but become a pair (not in that way yet, so far) who go off in search of wine, as they seem to be sent on various missions to get particular wines. Each of these side tasks are not filler but intimately connected to the goals of this work, as they result in introducing them, and the reader, to important aspects of wine and wine culture (in all the meanings of that word).
The first major task is to find a replacement for a bottle of wine that Miyabi accidentally breaks while trying to help Shizuku. This was no ordinary wine, but a special wine that her boss, Mr. Mishima, had received from an old friend who was coming to visit his restaurant in Japan. The bottle is seemingly irreplaceable, but Shizuku sets out to find a replacement, armed with nothing more than a small sip of wine he recovered from the shattered bottle. He does have help. Miyabi introduces Shizuku to Mr. Fujieda, the owner of a small wine bar that she frequents, who is quite generous in providing Shizuku with free samples of various wines, as well as his own knowledge of wine. When his limited stock cannot help, he introduces Shizuku to another man who is more in the stereotypical vein of the eccentric, wizened old master: an old homeless man named Robert Doi. This man is, of course, a hidden wine master who tests Shizuku, placing a puzzle before him which Shizuku, of course, passes, as he must or the story is over. In the course of the test, Shizuku also learns his first important lesson about wine.
He could not have gotten to this point, however, if one thing was not clear: while Shizuku is just a rank amateur with no knowledge of wine lore, he has something which even experienced master would kill for—because of his strange upbringing, he has a divinely sensitive palate and a highly trained sense of smell. Even two seemingly identical wines would not be the same for him. It is a gift, the only one given to him by his late father, but one that might give him a shot at winning the contest.
At this point, I would like to note how much pleasure there is in not reading about teenagers, super powered or not, trapped in an eternal high school. The characters here are all adults, living in an adult world. They have jobs and mature relationships with each other (though there is no overt sex so far, only hints and indications). This is a work for a grown-up audience.
We get a double climax, in this double volume, though both may have been in what was volume 2 originally. The first is when Shizuku, thanks to Master Robert’s help, finds a replacement bottle for Mr. Mishima. The second is when Shizuku and Tomine have their first head-to-head match up. Not for the 12 Apostles, but a special wine that Yutaka left aside as a “parting” gesture. The two young men are asked to give their impressions of the wine as a painting. The contest has an interesting result, for while one man wins, he is not entirely satisfied with his victory.
This is not the end, however, not by a long shot. The reader should not feel satisfied either, as I was not. Not because of a lack of pleasure, but because I wanted to read more. The volume ends on a cliffhanger, as Shizuku is sent on another wine mission. Fortunately, the following volume is already out (as are two more), so that desire can be sated quickly. And that is the real strength of The Drops of God. It leaves you wanting to read more. More about Shizuku’s quest to find the 12 Apostles. More about what makes wine special. More.
In Summary:
Being the son of a world-famous wine critic can be tough, especially if your father’s obsession has turned you off of wine, but he demands that your right to inherit his estate is linked to your knowledge of the intoxicating liquid. Shizuku Kanzaki is in this exact position, as he must battle against a young rising star of the wine world in order to possess all that his father has to pass along. This, however, just forms a backdrop for a drama about wine, an almost mystical drink that has enthralled people for ages. The Drops of God succeeds in making both the story of Shizuku, and the story of wine, both interesting and exciting for a grown-up audience who might be tired of super powered teenagers and high school angst. Mature drama with complexity and depth, like a fine wine, await you. Highly recommended.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A
Package Rating: A
Text/Translation: A
Age Rating:
Released By: Vertical
Release Date: October 18th, 2011
MSRP: $14.95