Three-ring circus.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Touya Mikanagi
Translation/Adaptation: Su Mon Han
What They Say
Nai–a young man who travels in search of another by the name of Karoku, a lone bracelet his only lead. Gareki–a willful young man who earns his daily bread by thieving and picking pockets. Thrown together at an eerie mansion, where they are entrapped and framed, Nai and Gareki are soon hunted down as criminals by national security forces. As they are driven into a corner, before them appears the most powerful defense agency in the country, “Circus”–!!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Karneval is the latest Zero-Sum published series to hit strong with a certain subset of readers. Those readers being the sort that Zero-Sum caters too, women looking for brooding pretty boys getting in to life threatening situations resulting in male bonding. The anime certainly made an impression and was already released in English by Funimation by the time Yen Press picked up and released this first volume.
Yen decided to play catch up with this series, taking an omnibus route for publication. The first volume’s cover is on the front, the second is the back’s, leaving off volume summary edition information in a move I was surprised to see. Don’t adjust your eyes, the artwork of Nai on the cover is intentionally blurry and not a printing or replication defect. It’s a coloring effect I’m not fond of, and the artist lightens up on it after a few color spreads. Yen includes several of those color illustrations at the beginning of this volume before the story gets underway.
Mikanagi’s artwork has an angular quality reminiscent of shoujo of yore, with pointy chins, tall oval eyes, and long lanky limbs. The rest of the presentation is all modern though. Clothes are flamboyant and for the circus members and slightly more trendy and contemporary for Gareki and Nai. The backgrounds are solid but we don’t really get a good sense of place from them. There are no sweeping vistas of the vaguely European setting, just hints of it if you pay attention.
We’re introduced to the two lead characters straight off, with the young naive Nai being held captive by a black widow-esk monster woman. In comes the bomb toting thief Gareki who frees the boy and kicks off an uneasy friendship as they both run from and to the authorities. Nai immediately annoyed me, because I can’t stand hopelessly clueless for the sake of cute characters. Gareki’s flighty and flippant attitude was not helping. However by the time the two stop running and we meet the organization called Circus a few facts come to light which explain Nai’s behavior. I was surprised that such a seemingly huge plot point was revealed so early in the story, typically secrets like what Nai actually is are kept close to the chest to be unleashed dramatically later on.
The world building is fast and loose, and we’re not given much exposition on how things work. There’s magical science everywhere, and monsters called varuga which appear to be humans turned man-eaters. The members of the defense agency Circus tell Gareki only what he needs to know for clarification, and by extension we discover very little about what is actually going on. Circus itself is a force of good but at times it seems downright sinister.
At the heart of all of this is Nai’s journey to find his brother/father figure Karoku. The quest is taken up by Circus under the pretense of scientific research, because Nai is something that the researchers of Circus have been looking for. A perfect hybrid of sort, at least that’s what I can gather. The members of Circus that we meet are an eclectic group of weirdos that for all of their flamboyant style and goofy attitudes are proficient at their monster slaying job. Gareki is understandably uneasy being dragged in to events he barely understands, but he grows attached to Nai and doesn’t want to abandon the kid. He needed to be needed by someone, and Nai fulfilled that longing.
The volume ends just as it begins to explore Gareki’s past and how he became a gun wielding thief getting in over his head. The whole situation comes out of nowhere, and many of the plot developments seem to pop out of the either with little set up here. Sidetracked, Gareki strikes out to deal with lingering issues from his upbringing.
There are several short comics (including a pre-serialization short) as extras, and a preview of the next volume to finish off this first outing for Karneval.
In Summary
Karneval tosses much at it’s readers and expects us to juggle everything right away. While focusing on showing, not telling, we still don’t have a firm grasp on what’s possible and what isn’t in the world these characters inhabit. The rules are a mystery and the magic a conundrum. The artwork is a bit old fashioned, angular and lively and always in motion. With the swiftly moving narrative the art is getting the job done but there’s so much going on at any one moment it seems scattershot. At it’s core it’s a story about friendship, but it’s also a mystery where we aren’t sure what exactly the stakes are or even who the bad guys are or what they want. Our leads are adrift in the narrative, flung from one wild situation to the next. It’s fast paced and colorful characters are a plus, but I’m not quite sold on Gareki and Nai. Their plight isn’t drawing me in as it should be. Maybe I just need more time with them.
Content Grade: B –
Art Grade: B +
Packaging Grade: B +
Text/Translation Grade: A –
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: March 24th, 2015
MSRP: $20.00
