It’s cute good rain goddess versus evil sexy rain goddess in a battle for the fate of a desert town.
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Atsushi Suzumi
Translation: Elina Ishikawa
Adaptation: Elina Ishikawa
What They Say
Gimmy is just an ordinary teen living in a desert town when his younger twin brother and sister disappear. While searching for them, Gimmy comes face-to-face with a sassy deity, Sora, the rain goddess who provides water to the town. But another goddess, Ciel, wants Sora’s sacred tree so that she can control the rain!
Includes special extras after the story!
The Review!
Technical:
Del Rey has done an excellent job with this release. This volume keeps the Japanese cover with an attractive picture of Sora brandishing a whip and a sly smile. The white background allows the bright rainbow colors of her outfit and hair to really stand out and grab your attention. The cover references the two other Suzumi series that are available in America, so fans of Venus Versus Virus and Haridama will know it is a work from the same author. The back cover features an image of Sora’s nimbus tree rising above the desert and a succinct summary. The volume is quite large at around 225 pages and contains three pages of notes from the creator, a two-page character guide, a page of translation notes, and an untranslated preview of the second volume. Sound effect art has not been changed, and translations appear in a small, unobtrusive font.
Atsushi Suzumi’s art features detailed line work and few screen tones, with darker colors and shadows inked with solid black. The high contrast allows the finer details of backgrounds and facial expressions to stand out. Character designs are attractive but thematically muddled. Most of the supporting characters appear vaguely Middle Eastern in appearance and dress, but Gimmy and Sora wear modern designs. Sora’s animal trainer outfit might be explained by the fact that she’s a goddess (stranger narrative conceits exist), but Gimmy looks surprisingly out of place in glasses and cardigans. Suzumi does note the incongruity of his design but explains that it suits her tastes. Fair enough.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Amefurashi opens in an unnamed desert town located at the base of a giant tree with clouds for leaves. This nimbus tree is the home of the amefurashi, or rain goddess, who provides rain in exchange for regular offerings from the townspeople. The amefurashi of this town, we learn, is particularly enamored of dolls, and the town elder decides that the next doll is to be provided by Gimmy, a teenage inventor. Gimmy finds his tinkering talents do not translate into sculpture, and begins to panic as the deadline for the offering approaches. His younger twin siblings, Mel and Mil, decide to help by hiding in a box and posing as dolls. The amefurashi decides she likes these two very elaborate dolls, and spirits them up to her cottage. When Gimmy discovers what happened, he decides to confront the goddess, Sora, who turns out to be a tsundere teen with short shorts and a switch. Antics ensue.
Suzumi introduces a lot of ideas in this volume, but few are fully explored. Gimmy offers Sora fancy new dolls to exchange for his brother and sister, and she follows him down from her tree into the town. She’s amazed by all of the things she sees, and asks Gimmy to explain the purpose of apples, chickens, and books. But just as we expect a fish-out-of-water comedy, Sora gets kidnapped by bandits. Before the bandits’ motivations are fully explored, she manages to rescue herself with her magic, but soon falls ill. Then a monster attacks the tree. Then the twins go missing. Then an evil amefurashi in a belly dancer outfit decides she wants to steal the crystal that powers Sora’s nimbus tree. As the volume ends, it appears that “machinations of the evil rain goddess” is the plot that Suzumi has decided to follow through on, and Gimmy and Sora decide to fight back.
Suzumi’s Venus Versus Virus was hardly revolutionary, but it was entertaining. Comparing the two, I was able to pick out Amefurashi’s two main flaws. First is the lack of focus. Any one of the plots laid out in this first volume would have been entertaining, but all of them together are not. The volume’s frenetic pace prevents any time from being spent on character development and world building. We are given little to no information on the state of the world outside of the desert town, and all we really know about the town itself is that it needs the nimbus tree to survive. It appears the amefurashi and her tree are the edifices on which the entire world and narrative is constructed.
The second problem is the main character, Gimmy. In the character notes, Suzumi says that Gimmy started out as a side character in a different story, but eventually found himself in this one. From his outfit to his attitude, it’s clear he doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the fantasy world. His function in the plot, once Sora has been introduced, is to be the eternally put-upon straight man who just can’t handle the stress of interacting with such a wacky, feisty goddess. Unfortunately, Gimmy proves to be neither funny nor sympathetic, as his character, an “inventor with glasses”, is far too slight. Although she comes from the standard sassy heroine mold, Sora is a much stronger character. She has clever lines and is given some depth by vague hints about her past sprinkled throughout the volume. Amefurashi is her story, so one hopes that she can take center stage in the next act.
In Summary:
Amefurashi has several good ideas that look promising, but in this first volume, none are fully developed. Too much time is spent with an obnoxious protagonist, and too little time is spent on any of the story threads which are introduced one after another and ended just as abruptly. While I have hope that a future volume will make use of the story’s potential, the first volume is, unfortunately, unremarkable.
Content Grade: C
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Del Rey Manga
Release Date: June 23rd, 2009
MSRP: $10.99
