A Patch of Dreams by Hideji Oda

by Hideji Oda

Renei, a Fine Arts student in textiles, is sliding slowly into madness. Between the weight of her regrets and an ambiguous relationship with her professor, Koga, who is 20 years her senior, she has a tenuous hold on reality, at best. In her sleep she returns to Coo's World, a parallel universe or interior world in which she lived another lifetime with her late brother and several eccentric imaginary beings. Then Kaya reappears, a childhood friend who had previously committed suicide. When she invites Renei to sink into the abyss with her, Renei is left with a stay and live out her troubled existence or plunge into this chasm of unknown questions ... Oda's style could only be described as 'Existential Fantasy' in the league of Alice Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll or Cages by Dave McKean

Genres: Manga, Comics

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Hideji Oda was born in 1962 in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. After three years a design school he published his first manga in 1984 whilst working at the same time as a masseur. In the next seven years he created the popular manga serial Kakusan (Dispersion - 1995) followed by the predecessor to this title Coo no Sekai (Coo's World - 2000). His spiritual fantasy, Miyori no Mori (Miyori's Forest - 2005) was made into a high budget TV anime. He continues to live and work in Japan where he teaches manga at university.

Reviews

[Repellent Boy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vaya rachita más mala llevo con el manga. Otro que se me queda a medio camino. En el caso de El solar de los sueños, vamos a encontrarnos con una protagonista que tienes sueños con un misterioso mundo, donde ve a personas que han fallecido o con los que ha perdido el contaco. Una especie de más allá.

Creo que el principal problema que tiene es que trata (o intenta) muchos temas complejos, en muy poco tiempo y con cero profundidad: el purgatorio, la muerte, el duelo, el bullying, la religión, el amor... Demasiado en muy pocas páginas. Todo queda poco claro, poco concluso. No he terminado de entender que me quería contar, ni como acaba. Eso sí, el dibujo me gustó mucho.

[Elo · Rating 2 out of 5]

purée
en fait ça m'énerve parce que l'histoire aurait vraiment pu être folle mais c'était LOURD. j'apprécie énormément quand il y a un léger flou entre la réalité et le rêve, mais là c'était tellement chaotique que ça rendait l'ouvrage parfois illisible

mais il avait un potentiel de dingo

[Alex Fyffe · Rating 3 out of 5]

On the surface, this seems to be everything I would want from a book: Blurred lines between reality and an intricate and symbolic dream world, surreal designs, a unique and interesting art style, philosophizing about the purpose of life, a protagonist struggling between the pull of annihilation and rebirth, and more. And yet, the work as a whole falls flat, failing to bring together all of the elements that could have made it interesting.

A small part of my feeling of disconnection from the work might be the fault of the translation, which feels like one of those stilted 1980s B-film subs (this 22-year-old art student says "What the devil" at least three times, for instance). The translation certainly didn't do the work any favors.

However, most of the fault must be laid at the creator's feet. As a stand-alone work, this book attempts to bring the dream world to life, but it seems to draw heavily upon the writer's earlier work, Coo's World, and I couldn't shake the feeling while reading that I was getting Cliff's Notes of that story inside of this story, and so the dream world never felt particularly real or compelling throughout. The story in general just feels rushed, and character motivations seem unnaturally forced as a result. Most of the side characters were not fleshed out enough to truly care about.

There's a good story with plenty of interesting ideas in here, but it needed a lot more space to breathe.

2.5

[StrictlySequential · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fanfare / Ponent Mon (UK) Edition = 2006 = £12.99
->Translation = Shizuka Shimoyama & Elizabeth Tierman

The story is too ethereal for my tastes because it doesn't set enough anchor on either side of "reality" enough to make the other contrast. It's just all->out->there threadbare so I didn't much care. The characters don't have much grounding support so I didn't understand them enough. But it succeeds philosophically as thought provoking.

The emotionally-revealing art has a scratchy-wispiness that is beautiful and lends itself perfectly to the transience of the narrative! Also, this is the first time that I've seen eyes of the large (stereotypically) manga-size that didn't bother me.

[Kaleidograph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although the blending of dream and reality works well in places, ultimately it was unsatisfyingly vague for me. I felt like the narrative was touching on interesting stories here and there, but not really making anything clear. It was like one of these weird dreams that you wake up from and find hard to describe afterwards. I recognize that capturing this dreamlike quality may have been the objective of the author and it certainly is a remarkable feat. But as a story, a graphic novel, it was nevertheless frustrating.

(The drawing style comes off as a bit stilted to me as well. Or perhaps it's just not my taste.)

[Carly Patrick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Es horrible, no entendí nada nunca...

Todos los personajes me desesperaron demasiado y como mencionan otras reseñas quiere abarcar tantos temas en muy poco tiempo que no trata ninguno bien, solo hizo que me doliera la cabeza.

[Nuria Algarra · Rating 2 out of 5]

El principal problema de este cómic es que intenta hacer entrar con calzador demasiados temas complicados de tratar como son el vacío, la soledad, el acoso escolar, el suicidio, la enfermedad, la locura, el incesto, la infidelidad, el aborto, las relaciones prohibidas, la homosexualidad, la corrupción de menores, la violación y la crueldad en general. Hideji Oda intenta dar un sentido trascendente que queda en algo así como una pueril rabieta propia de un adolescente deprimido.

Leer más: http://laestanteriadenuria.wordpress....

[Nate D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Naturally enticed the narrative bleeding between dream and reality, but it was a little more scattered and a little less developed (leaning a bit on the author's past work, which I haven't read and which is supposed to be not strictly necessary. Interesting mood of liminal states and empty lots, good artist protagonist, and the unusual (for manga) fuzzy pencil style fits.

[Lector Anacrónico · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me gustó el libro pero me parece que el tema que se quiere abarcar es muy complejo o muy grande y no alcanza a desarrollarse completamente dentro del manga; cabe destacar las ilustraciones que creo yo, están muy bien cuidadas y me parece que los dibujos están muy acordes con la temática de la historia.

[Carlos Rioja · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the ambient, and the story is nice.

[Eli Entrenebras · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nope.

(Casi mejor leed Nijigahara Holograph)

[F · Rating 2 out of 5]

Did not enjoy the story as much as I hoped I would.