Kamui

Publisher
Broccoli Books
Writer
Shingo Nanami
Artist
Shingo Nanami
Country of origin
Japan
Year
2001

Kamui V. 1

By David Rasmussen
12th Feb 06

There are abit of good reads over at Broccoli Books. Galaxy Angel is my favorite, but I also had good vibes with the two book Until the Full Moon, and I bet Di Gi Charat fans are enjoying the books coming out from Broccoli on that series. And then there’s Aquarian Age and… hmm… actually we could use more.
To provide us with more reads, Broccoli Books has a new title out in Kamui, and that’s our focus here.

So, first question… what is Kamui?
According to the book it is simply a term used to describe “the spirits”. Spirits that seemingly walk the Earth, and wage unholy war against it’s inhabitants. The Earth, once again (big surprise) is not in it’s happy place… isn’t that a common thing we run into in Anime/Manga! Anyway that’s not how it started…
It started a long long time ago. Once upon a time mankind lived in harmony with the spirits of the Earth… you know, around the time of God of War and so forth… but when mankind embraced technology that relationship became strained, and mankind/spirits got a “divorce” of sorts. And like any bad marriage turned into a bad divorce the spirits did not take lightly that “divorce”, and the Earth is now a beat up place.
Mankind is now seemingly at odds with the spirits, but of course that’s nothing compared to now. Apparently a spirit named Okikurumi has been taken from a village, and one man (Atsuma) has been sent to retrieve it. This spirit has seemingly set off an imbalance between the spirit world and… what the heck!!

Uh… a spirit was taken from a village and a guy named… why does this set-up in a futuristic world sound like something KOEI would have cooked up for a ancient Chinese slash Japanese alternative to their endless parade of Romance of the Three Kingdoms slash Dynasty Warriors slash Kessan! I like how the world is dying and all, and how the recovery of this spirit will stop the end of the world and all but… well… the setup to kick this off sounds like an old chestnut from a feudal dynasty era sword and sorcery thing.

Anyway back to the story. Atsuma shows up in the dead husk of a former major metropolis and finds that it’s still inhabited by people, has problems with rampaging spirits known as atanans, and is policed by a group known as NOA. NOA, not to be confused with the Japanese food products company of the same name (if I remember my companies right, which I don’t always do so don’t worry if I got this wrong -- remember that I confused KOEI with TOEI for a few weeks once) is a group of young people who wield the power of the kamui (spirits), and who may or may not be party to information concerning the present disposition of the spirit Okikurumi, and it’s possible retrieval. Obviously NOA is the big show in town and if Atsuma wants to make any progress in finding Okikurumi he’s going to have to play ball and join forces with them by allowing them to “recruit” him into their ranks. Not easy, especially since the group is filled with more dysfunctional youth than most seasons of the seldomly spoken of anymore Real World.
After all he’s recruited by one named Sumire, she who has a hot bod but seemingly a “Space for Rent” sign on her spiritual place since she’s supposed to have an “empty soul”. She yearns for a miracle… too bad her right hand woman Aika seems to yearn for another kind of miracle with Sumire… or am I the only one who thinks Aika has the hots for Sumire.

Anyway since you can’t pick your family, or the strange young people you have to work with to accomplish your goals, it looks like Atsuma is going to have to live “the surreal life” by getting to know his new “companions” and “coworkers” if he is going to get their help in recovering Okikurumi before the world ends… or William Hung becomes a megastar… or both… or whatever.
Of course that’s just the basics. There’s lots of depth, lots of interaction and lots of action going on here as well. The tip of the iceberg is nothing compared to the story beneath, and whether you love it or not depends on how you embrace this book. Once you read it you’ll know how you’ll feel about the rest, there is no two ways about it. Once you like this you’ll buy the next, and next, and next. Trust me.
Let’s break it down now.

Kamui Breakdown the 1st
What’s Hot?
It should be a good pick up. It has action, but it also has interesting characters and a nice story. There isn’t much out right now from Broccoli Books (as opposed to ADVManga or TOKYOPOP) but it does have good things like this, and Galaxy Angel and so forth. You should check it out, and if you find approval in this as I did you’ll be back for more.

What’s Not?
Of course you might not like it as much. Odds are if you didn’t embrace this book odds are 50/50 that you’ll do a 360 with Volume 2. Of course I think you should read Volume 2, because you might find that you might like it once the story gets into a full speed roll and really starts moving, but that’s up to you.
Anyway check it out, see what you think, and judge it yourself before you declare it obsolete unfairly.

Moments to Remember?
I’ll leave that for you to discover… I’d say the obvious but why be so obvious about… and about… then there’s… well… check it out.

What to Ignore?
Hmm… did you know this book is originally something published by Square Enix? Does this mean this used to be a video game? Really? What game?

Overall?
I think it’s worth checking out. If you can you should try it, and see if you’ll like it or not. Simple enough request. Check it, read it, see what you think. Nuff said.

-- David Rasmussen 12th Feb 06