Manga: Nijigahara Holograph

[Apraxhren]

Nijigahara (Rainbow Field, a location within the manga) is a heavy book. Its thick black cover and roughly 300-page girth are a sign of things to come: this is a black, bleak story, complicated and convoluted. It is a story that you can read again and again, and notice new things each time. It is a story that you need to read again and again to puzzle together. It is a story heavy with symbolism and maddeningly intricate.

Suzuki is a troubled boy. He's lived with uncaring foster parents for most of his life, alienated from the other kids at his school, owner of a cynical, unhappy mentality. Komatsuzaki is a violent, unpredictable bully whose head trauma causes him to act in mysterious, inexplicable ways. Arakawa is a no-nonsense, normal girl who pines after Komatsuzaki but can never have him. A teacher with just one working eye. A mother who committed suicide. A daughter in an endless coma. Attempted rapes, murders, extortion, sexual deviance, and a freakish explosion in the butterfly population. All of these elements are whirled together in a story spanning 10 years, a tale of blackness, pain and apocalypse. And maybe just a bit of hope and redemption. It's a spiritual cross between the misanthropic suburban malevolence of Kyoko Okazaki's Rivers Edge and the eerie mysticality of Donnie Darko.

From: http://www.mangascreener.com/



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This is a long read at 292 pages, and like it says you really need to read it more than once, which I'm not sure is such a good thing. It is an interesting read at the least, but beyond that is debatable.

[animus]

I just read the whole thing, and I'm confused to all hell. I don't feel like reading it again due to it's massive size, but can anyone clear up a few things?














Spoilers:

1. Who was that old guy at the end?
2. Did Suzuki actually rape Arie?
3. What exactly is Arie? Are Suzuki and her related?
















Just quesitons off the top of my head. There's a ton more, but if anyone could provide info on what they can comprehend that'd be great.

[Apraxhren]

Spoilers!



1: The old man was God, or a representation of God. Page 32 says "I was in the hospital a while ago and God felt so bad about my pain that he brought me a present."
2. If you are talking about 262-266 I'd say no, it didn't seem to be forced sex.
3. part1: I'm pretty sure Arie is the messenger from God described on page 172. There are several things I feel that point to this other than pg172. Pages 273-277 where Arie's mother, who would also fit into the messenger from God according to the tale on 172, tells how she had the dream she was a butterfly who saw everything the happens and mentions hearing a voice that must of been God. Then on page 31 we see Suzuki talking to a butterfly which is presumably Arie, and when Suzuki asked "Are you God?" she responds "No but I have met him before." Finally, on page 263 when Arie is conscious again she says "I can see everything that happens in the world."
3. part2: Yes they seem to be siblings. page 247 we "hear" Suzuki say "he told me I was the son of his previous wife. Not his." Also on page 6 he again states that his father is of no relation to him. Support for them being siblings comes from page 265 when Arie specifically calls him "Big brother" and on pages 276-277 we see what looks like younger versions of Arie and Suzuki playing.

That is what I'm concluded so far at least, I can't say it is the truth so don't hold me accountable

[masamuneehs]

wow, this grabbed my attention. I read through the first three chapters, and I must say that this is a very awesome story. The art is beautiful and the story seems very complex and deep. It's confusing, but engrossing and the cutting between times is done quite nicely. I'm enjoying this immensely right now.

edit - lord almighty... i just could not get to sleep until I read the rest of this... I haven't cried in months... this story was just so beautiful, dark and twisted and depressing, but beautiful at the same time. it took me quite a while to figure out what was going on, and i sometimes got confused, but wow, just an amazing read. great find aprax. deep deep deep stuff. this one's a keeper.

[animus]

Spoilers!



1: The old man was God, or a representation of God. Page 32 says "I was in the hospital a while ago and God felt so bad about my pain that he brought me a present."
2. If you are talking about 262-266 I'd say no, it didn't seem to be forced sex.
3. part1: I'm pretty sure Arie is the messenger from God described on page 172. There are several things I feel that point to this other than pg172. Pages 273-277 where Arie's mother, who would also fit into the messenger from God according to the tale on 172, tells how she had the dream she was a butterfly who saw everything the happens and mentions hearing a voice that must of been God. Then on page 31 we see Suzuki talking to a butterfly which is presumably Arie, and when Suzuki asked "Are you God?" she responds "No but I have met him before." Finally, on page 263 when Arie is conscious again she says "I can see everything that happens in the world."
3. part2: Yes they seem to be siblings. page 247 we "hear" Suzuki say "he told me I was the son of his previous wife. Not his." Also on page 6 he again states that his father is of no relation to him. Support for them being siblings comes from page 265 when Arie specifically calls him "Big brother" and on pages 276-277 we see what looks like younger versions of Arie and Suzuki playing.

That is what I'm concluded so far at least, I can't say it is the truth so don't hold me accountable

Hm, by question 2 i meant 264-266. Because on 266 he's attacking her. But on 270 she seems completely normal.

[Apraxhren]

Hm, by question 2 i meant 264-266. Because on 266 he's attacking her. But on 270 she seems completely normal.

Yea that part I still don't get. To me it seems something got triggered in him when she said "I can hear mommy's voice. Big brother." He then appears to kill her, and mumbles "M, Mom..." and runs away. Then the whole butterfly thing happens and he is back in front of her...Is that last scene maybe in his mind?

[bukuwawa]

1. the old man was suzuki.

there are two times he appears. At the beginning, talking to adult suzuki, when he asks to be wheeled over to a crying child...

... who was suzuki crying as a child at the end. He then tells suzuki that he has the same first name as him, and takes off as a butterfly.

adult suzuki and kid suzuki also cross paths in the middle of the manga.


2. I don't think he really tried to rape Arie. I think seeing her sent him into kind of a state of shock and he freaked out. He's kneeling in front of her at the end of that sequence and she's not hurt. The reason seeing her shocked him is...

3. arie and suzuki are twins. You can see them for the first time on page 2.


That scene is the climax of the manga, and sort of the end of the story. We never see further into the future than that moment. Suzuki was depressed as a kid, and when the insane cafe owner (Higure-Brother) killed Suzuki's only real friend (Higure-Sister) in the fire when he was a kid, i think it more or less broke him, left a lot of violence and bile inside him. What happened when he eventually saw Arie as an adult was, i think, kind of a catharsis, all of that blackness pouring out and blowing away all at once. The only hint we have about what happened to him after that was the behavior of the old man with his younger selves. He seemed like a pretty good old man to me. So in that sense, I think there is a happy ending to the story.

This manga is very complex, stephen joked with me about making an annotated version with all our thoughts about it, maybe I will sometime. There's so much surrounding the other main characters too, Komatsuzaki, Arakawa, the teacher Sakaki.

I'm really glad to see people discussing it!