Our princess wears gray sweats, no makeup, and obsessively draws jellyfish.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Akiko Higashimura
Translation/Adaptation: Sarah Alys Lindholm
What They Say
Tsukimi Kurashita has a strange fascination with jellyfish. She’s loved them from a young age and has carried that love with her to her new life in the big city of Tokyo. There, she resides in Amamizukan, a safe-haven for girl geeks who regularly gush over a range of things from trains to Japanese dolls. However, a chance meeting at a pet shop has Tsukimi crossing paths with one of the things that the residents of Amamizukan have been desperately trying to avoid—a beautiful and fashionable woman! But there’s much more to this woman than her trendy clothes! This odd encounter is only the beginning of a new and unexpected path for Tsukimi and her friends.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Over the years, we have had several otaku profiled in manga and anime. Most of the female characters have had an upside that made them better than the average high school girl. Characters like Haruka Nogizaka of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu and Kirino Kosaka of Oreimo had modeling jobs and world-class musical and athletic talent, respectively. Sena from Haganai is the top of the class and the girl every guy in school fawns over. Nowhere in their lives do they face trauma unrelated to enjoying their hobbies. Where are the basket cases like we had in the male characters of Tatsuhiro Sato, the shut-in NEET from Welcome to the NHK? Or even the guy who quit school and ordered the Rozen Maiden doll? Long overdue, Kodansha brings us the Amars.
Tsukimi Kurashita and the other otaku sisters who live together in Amamizukan make Sato seem like he could be the creepy guy across the street who looks over and thinks, “I won’t go out as long as they are here.” The Amars appear to be in their 20s and 30s. According to the translation notes, they got the name from “Ama” which means nun and is used as a gendered insult. When the Amars are asked what they do for a living, one of the characters says that their parents support them. This is fine to her because when the economic bubble burst at the end of the 1980s, their parents had accumulated wealth, but they had no chance of even getting a job after the economy slowed and companies stopped hiring. The Amars spend their lives as consumers of their individual interests, women who understand each other as people who are not social or trying to be socially relevant. They live as a community outside of the social norms of Japan circa 2009.
Tsukimi becomes our lens in the cloistered world. Her mother died, and one of her lasting memories is a trip to an aquarium where her mother saw a jellyfish that had ruffles and told Tsukimi that she would make a wedding dress like that. Tsukimi grew uncertain after her mother died while she was still young, and she had less and less contact with others. In her Amamizukan room hang image after image of jellyfish, and her life floats placidly among them.
Tsukimi meets Kuranosuke, a stylish girl, who helps Tsukimi save a pet store jellyfish from certain death. When Tsukimi realized the jellyfish had been put in an environment that would kill it, she tried to tell the young man who was working in the store after hours. He insults her and pushes her to the ground. When Kuranosuke walks up and takes charge of the situation, the equilibrium that exists in the socially sequestered life of the otaku nest becomes fragile as the iridescent creature Tsukimi places in the communal tub.
Kuranosuke, the son of a prominent political family, dresses like a girl as a hobby, and he is no virgin, having bedded every popular girl in town. Now bored, he finds Tsukimi interesting as a project. He wants to use his knowledge of fashion to make her a beauty. By doing the Pygmalion thing, Kuranosuke feels that he has found the new motivation to give his life a spark. When his older brother Shu sees Tsukimi in makeup and fashionable clothes, Shu seems to be attracted to the point of distraction. The next time he sees her, the makeup has been smeared and Tsukimi looks like a Chinese hopping vampire. Shu detests the women at Amamizukan, and he seems to be supportive of having their building demolished for new construction.
Now we have the primary story for the first 374 pages. Kuranosuke and Tsukimi miss their mothers. Kuranosuke rebels against his family by dressing in drag, but Tsukimi finds her solace in not trying to be a princess. As each influences the other, they become more confused. Both Tsukimi and Kuranosuke have internal monologues where they address their mothers. For Tsukimi, she questions the new found attention that Kuranosuke and his older brother have bestowed on her. She tries to talk herself out of trying to be more than a member of Amars. In other words, she has to set her obsessions for jellyfish and self-doubt to the side, but at this point, she doesn’t have the confidence. All the while a threat to Amamizukan seems to grow as everyone except Kuranosuke seems unable or unwilling to stand up to the developers.
When one of the developer representatives takes matters into her own hands and sets up big brother Shu, emotions and loyalties simmer like a hotpot at the kotatsu.
In Summary
Princess Jellyfish makes us love the messed up characters of Amamizukan for their humanity. While many manga with female otaku push the “we’re normal and otaku” angle, PJ gives us an honest and humorous portrayal of lost souls trying to survive in Tokyo. Akiko Higashimura has the scary gift of creating amorphous stereotypes, characters with whom we all can identify and feel empathy in their faults. Her use of diverse techniques and emotive art have a wonderful presentation in this dual volume edition with clean printing and generous page size. Omnibus 01 takes readers through otaku Tsukimi’s crisis of being desirable with little desire to be noticed. Higashimura creates a beautiful story of a person on the brink of living beyond her dreams yet afraid to step out of her nightmare’s shadow.
Highly recommended for the emotional journey, gentle comedy, and as a poignant slice of life.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: March 22nd, 2016
MSRP: $19.99
