What do you think?
Rate this book
Seaside Beta
Speech balloons, or balloons for short, are objects that appear once spoken, showing the speaker’s exact words right near them. Balloons and the language they show are controlled by the black towers. There exist approximately 6900 in the world, and within them…
Their newest work, ohuton’s SEASIDE BETA is a contemporary coming of age / Sci-Fi comic inspired by the Sci-Fi classic Flatland. Seaside Beta is story about a story within a story that is unraveled within itself. The quest for “color”, and the obsessive search for “an escape” into the “real”.
A startling work that glimmers with the depiction of childish youth and the occult. A physics mystery about individuals’ attempt to escape from the very pages of the comic itself.
Their newest work, ohuton’s SEASIDE BETA is a contemporary coming of age / Sci-Fi comic inspired by the Sci-Fi classic Flatland. Seaside Beta is story about a story within a story that is unraveled within itself. The quest for “color”, and the obsessive search for “an escape” into the “real”.
A startling work that glimmers with the depiction of childish youth and the occult. A physics mystery about individuals’ attempt to escape from the very pages of the comic itself.
- GenresManga
260 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2024
31 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 6, 2025
The art is nice, but this is a deliberately confusing read that I fell asleep at least 6 times trying to finish. But experimental comics are great, even when they're not to everyone's taste
March 25, 2025
Freakin' loved this book, ohuton is such a great creator. One of the most innovative books i've read., Since Ohuton is a physicist in real life, the meta comics aspect is related behind a lot of science. But a large chunk of the story is that, essentially, these characters know they live in a black and white world, and one or two characters presume 'god' (Ohuton) has created this world. They all yearn to get back to the color-world, thinking it's the real world, and that the black and white version is a fake. The main character can see the 3 basic main colors, blue, green and red, and is a word bubble scientist. There are occasional glimpses of color flickering throughout the book through his eyes. The main aspect about the book is talking a lot about speech bubbles, how soon they happen after speech.2 Word bubbles split into Alpha and Beta types. There are also paragraphs of prose throughout the book, kinda giving us bits of info about the story through these, what seem like memory fragments from the color world. It was a refreshing take on people wanting escape the their comic world into reality.
It's not an easy read, but it kind of has a lackadaisical attitude throughout the whole book, not in a bad way, it doesn't really explain much aside from the word bubble stuff through Ikebe. You're kinda left to figure things out through the context clues in the prose pages.
So, essentially, part of it is them wanting to escape this comic world, in which the black tower controls, into 'reality', the color-world. Only them learning that the color-world isn't reality, and that the black-and-white world is the real world. Reality is what you make of it.
As one of the characters said, it's not easy to explain in words. Ohuton's world also talks about how 3d people have more status compared to 2d people. It's a kinda challenging read, surprisingly, i definitely didnt pick everything up this first time. It was kinda goofy, yet dense at the same time. A delicate balance. And Ohuton's artwork, boy, his artwork. It's sort of reminiscent of a mix of influences like Taiyo Matsumoto and a few other artists with that 'un-straight' line of comics. But Ohuton has forged his own path, making his style more blocky, nostalgic, and cinematic. And the way he uses light on his blocky figures is fantastic.
If any of this interests you, check it out. An amazingly fun book, yet with some places I did not expect it to go. I don't think i'll be reading anything else in comics like this book. It's a wholly palpable comic that abides by it's love for comics. Or so that's my take on the story, anyways.
It's not an easy read, but it kind of has a lackadaisical attitude throughout the whole book, not in a bad way, it doesn't really explain much aside from the word bubble stuff through Ikebe. You're kinda left to figure things out through the context clues in the prose pages.
So, essentially, part of it is them wanting to escape this comic world, in which the black tower controls, into 'reality', the color-world. Only them learning that the color-world isn't reality, and that the black-and-white world is the real world. Reality is what you make of it.
As one of the characters said, it's not easy to explain in words. Ohuton's world also talks about how 3d people have more status compared to 2d people. It's a kinda challenging read, surprisingly, i definitely didnt pick everything up this first time. It was kinda goofy, yet dense at the same time. A delicate balance. And Ohuton's artwork, boy, his artwork. It's sort of reminiscent of a mix of influences like Taiyo Matsumoto and a few other artists with that 'un-straight' line of comics. But Ohuton has forged his own path, making his style more blocky, nostalgic, and cinematic. And the way he uses light on his blocky figures is fantastic.
If any of this interests you, check it out. An amazingly fun book, yet with some places I did not expect it to go. I don't think i'll be reading anything else in comics like this book. It's a wholly palpable comic that abides by it's love for comics. Or so that's my take on the story, anyways.
February 10, 2025
This turned out to be a more challenging read than I thought - in a good way. I love stories that pushes the boundaries of what we know and expect of the comic genre. Speach bubbles, black and white, colors, boxes, text, temporality : all used in an innovative way throughout the story.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews