Wild Adapter, vol. 5 (Kazuya Minekura)

[chomiji]

This entire volume is a flashback. We get to find out what happened right after Kubota picked up his "stray cat" at the end of volume 1 and learn how they became the odd but close couple we saw in volume 2 and thereafter. The story is told mostly in first person, from the viewpoint of young Iizuka Shouta, Kubota's next door neighbor. I don't recall seeing this viewpoint used much at all in the manga I've read thus far - it's rather interesting.

Shouta is a solitary child who doesn't get along with his classmates, doesn't play sports, and doesn't belong to any clubs. Both parents work, and his afternoons are usually spent alone in the family apartment, playing videogames and writing and drawing manga- and anime-influenced adventure stories . When his neighbor Kubota shows up one afternoon with another young man slung over his shoulder, unconscious, Shouta's life gets a lot more interesting. For one thing, the comatose guy has a hand that looks like an animal's paw, furred and clawed. For another, Kubota needs Shouta's help when the new arrival wakes up: he doesn't trust Kubota, but he's much less on the defensive with a child.

Minekura is good at portraying kids, and when Shouta's going off into his fantasies about what's really going on with his next-door neighbor, the story has a rather Neil Gaiman-esque feel to it. And although Shouta certainly learns a lot from this strange interlude in his life, Kubota and Tokito get a few lessons as well.

Wild Adapter, vol. 5 (review)

Oh boy! We see Kou-san wearing something besides his Chinese robe! He shows up at Kubota's wearing a maxi-length trenchcoat! I'm in Heaven!

OK, now that I've got that out of my system ... . But I really wish Minekura would do some more with Kou ... .

There are some funny scenes, but mostly, this was really, really beautiful and sad. Yet it ends with a feeling of fulfillment and optimism. The scene where Shouta explains to Kubota what he's been doing wrong with Tokito - via the ruse of asking for help with figuring out the motivations and personality of one of his story characters - is one of the sweetest, most poignant things I've read recently. And the scene where Tokito makes Kubota confess his feelings is all kinds of win.

Question for the manga experts: I've been tagging my manga reviews with categories such as shoujo or seinen. But where on that spectrum does Wild Adapter fit in?

• Oyceter's write-up on this (with spoilers)

Comments

[avierra.livejournal.com]

I have, indeed! Very angsty and, as you said, sad and beautiful. But I think it was quite hopeful at the end, and as if they had come to terms with whatever it was between them. I really liked the last few panels where Tokito reached out to Kubota and told him to take his hand if he wanted him, it gave me a happy sniffle.

Minekura seems to have a running "thing" about the value of touch and sensation. In Saiyuki, it's Gojyo who craves contact, but interestingly, in WA it's Kubo (who I consider to be more or less a Hakkai analog) who needs it and is afraid to ask for it from the person he wants/needs it.

And I liked that Minekura made it clear that the lack of physicality was emotionally painful for both Kubo and Tokito, and causing problems and misunderstandings in their relationship (which has barely started at this point).

The whole Kubota backstory about how he was unwanted and unneeded and how he shouldn't have existed in the first place was just heartbreaking (and again, very similar to Gojyo's story).

And Shouta was wonderful (and funny), wiser and smarter than both of the others even though he's much younger.

I like to think they both went home at the end and screwed each other to the mattress. >_>

[chomiji]

Tokito is very odd in sweet ways - he apparently uses the most macho language to refer to himself in Japanese, and that sort of goes with what he does to Kubota in that scene, making him declare that yes, he needs Tokito. And I love the part where Tokito is talking enthusiastically about reading Shouta's manga some day, and Kubo isn't quite so sure he'll want to read it.

I think Shouta has learned a lot - much too much for a child his age, in fact - from listening to his parents fight, poor kid. I know how he feels.

Yeah, Kubo seems to have Gojyo's story and Hakkai's personality!

I think maybe Kubo didn't know that he had the touch thing himself until recently ... maybe when the unconscious Tokito grabbed him and snuggled up ... .

[chomiji]

But Onime-no-Kyo does that too, and he's a psycho!

(Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm told that Yukimura talks a lot more like Hakkai.)

[chomiji]

Well, that's true, but there's more to him than that ... his dynamic as a leader is surprisingly complicated, as are relationships to (just for a couple of examples that you've already met) Akira and Kyoshiro.