Lydia and Edgar go in search of an ancient treasure, but neither knows the extent of the terror it might entail.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Ayuko
Translation/Adaptation: John Werry
What They Say
Edgar and his small band must travel to the Isle of Manan, once home to the Blue Knight Earl. But the island is surrounded by merfolk, whose tragic songs cause rough seas and shipwrecks. And even if Edgar and his companions reach the island, they face death if it turns out he isn’t a true heir to the Earl…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The previous volume of this series was infuriatingly inconsistent; at one moment, the heroine seemed in control of her destiny and willing to go on a grand adventure, while at another she seemed to exist as a plaything for the deceptive, temperamental male lead. The second volume retains many of the same issues and adds a few more – senseless melodrama and inscrutable plot twists.
Lydia Carlton, a “fairy doctor” who serves as a conduit between the human and fairy realms, has been forcibly-recruited by Edgar Ashenbert, a self-described earl and heir to lands in both the fairy and human worlds (or so he claims). She travels with the Earl and his servants, Ermine and Raven, to an isolated island said to house the Earl’s ancestral holdings, along with the treasure sword that they seek. Obtaining the treasure is not simply a matter of walking up to the front door of the mansion and knocking, however; the island is guarded by merrows, mermaids that haunt the dark waters and murder unsuspecting travelers. The Earl seems unfazed by this knowledge, but Lydia has her misgivings. After learning a few of the Earl’s secrets on her own, she begins to understand that she may also need to fear for her very life.
As Lydia gains more knowledge about Ermine and Raven and learns more about the mysterious power that Edgar holds over them, she becomes more and more conflicted about participating in the mad quest she’s been roped-into. Yet, despite feeling like a calf being lead to the slaughter, she simply cannot bring herself to abandon Edgar in his hour of need.
Call me alarmist, but I would not have felt it out-of-line to label volume one of The Earl and the Fairy as “my first emotional abuse handbook.” The male lead, a charming, attractive-yet-rakish individual, starts early and works tirelessly to sow the seeds of self-doubt in Lydia’s mind. These seeds begin to blossom frequently and quickly, until even the originally spunky, independent-minded Lydia can no longer trust her own instincts. She’s aware of the danger that this man of false pretenses represents to her, and yet he has her so deeply under his manipulative spell that she spends a great deal of energy working to justify the things she does and the feelings she has towards him.
This follow-up volume does not so much represent a conscious improvement on this arrangement, but it sheds some more light on who Edgar is and how his relationships to the few people he considers important to him have transformed him into the largely conflicted person he is now. To be clear, there is really no good justification for his treatment of Lydia, but the complicated situation surrounding the relationship he has with Ermine and his apparent ability to “tame” the dark powers that Raven holds inside his soul does provide a bit of depth to the mystery of the character.
That said, the outcome of this volume and its lead-in to volume three constitute a culmination of a series of mood-whiplashes and melodramatic plot-twists that would make even the most open-minded manga fan feel lost at sea. There’s a character death part way through the volume that had me literally asking the empty air in front of me, “why in the world did that just happen?” The answer to that question is obvious once one takes a step back from the experience of actualy reading the story; the shocking deaths, the characters who appear out of thin air to torment our heroes or be tormented by the villains, and the faux danger that seems to spring up on the characters at every turn is just a cheap way to throttle a few emotions out of the audience. We’re expected to care because, contextually, we should care, but the manga doesn’t do any of the legwork required to earn that sort of reaction.
There is nothing quite so painful to me as repeatedly reading the internal monologue of a character who knows that she’s about to be offered-up as a sacrificial lamb, yet feels “strangely drawn” to helping the man who would turn her into a victim for his own gain. There is something profoundly disturbing about that mindset, and the fact that this manga presents it as a positive aspect of Lydia’s personality is downright upsetting. This is a self-sacrificing mentality taken to its illogical emotional extreme.
In Summary
This time period and setting offer so much opportunity for the creation of a good story, yet that potentially fascinating yarn is buried knee-deep in problematic character issues. This volume seems to mark the end of a major story arc, and curiosity compels me to wonder whether Edgar’s new position in society will offer any new opportunities to correct the many issues with his character. My one hope, though, is that Lydia will be given the opportunity to stand up to Edgar’s manipulation and finally put him in his place. This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I feel as though the manga will simply self-destruct if an adjustment isn’t made fairly soon.
Content Grade: D+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: VizManga.com
Release Date: June 5, 2012 (Print)
MSRP: $4.99 Digital / $9.99 Print
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