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Amazon.com: Mitsukazu Mihara: The Embalmer: Books: Mitsukazu MiharaMitsukazu Mihara is well known in the Goth-Loli community for her manga Doll, but this is the first work of her's I read. Now I must go out and buy everything of hers she's ever written. I thought The Embalmer would perhaps be a mystery story, with the main character Shinjyurou Mamiya perhaps solving the reasons why the people he's embalming had died. I could not have been more wrong. Embalming turns back the hands of time.
Each story is a little vignette about the people Mamiya embalms. You could take each story as a stand alone story and be completely satisfied. The author makes little notes about the embalming profession and why it exists. It's a bit of reverse culture shock to a western reader, where embalming is a normal aspect of the death and grieving process. The little anecdotes that are meant to explain why embalming exists helps us to understand why it's uncommon in Japan.
There is no doubting that this is a morbid book, in almost every chapter someone dies. Mihara doesn't pull any punches either, I was tearing up over more than one of these stories. The one with the father who died of tuberculosis struck me especially hard. But it's never gruesome, there is no gore or bloody corpses. Mihara's lovely and stark artwork only enhances the melancholy nature of the story. There is almost no shading in her visuals, telling the story in a bare black and white. This could have had the effect of making everyone look like a cardboard cutout in a less experienced artist's hands, but Mihara's artwork is rich with depth.
Each story's pacing is spot on, unrushed and uncluttered. Mamiya's personality leaps off the page. The reader is just as interested as the landlord's daughter to learn more about him. It never feels like the story is suffering for not telling revealing all about him right away. The blurb for the next book promises to delve into how he got into the profession and I look forward to it.
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