ポーの一族 1

ポーの一族 (小学館文庫全3巻) #1

by Moto Hagio, 萩尾望都

青い霧に閉ざされたバラ咲く村にバンパネラの一族が住んでいる。血とバラのエッセンス、そして愛する人間をひそかに仲間に加えながら、彼らは永遠の時を生きるのだ。その一族にエドガーとメリーベルという兄妹がいた。19世紀のある日、2人はアランという名の少年に出会う…。時を超えて語り継がれるバンパネラたちの美しき伝説。少女まんが史上に燦然と輝く歴史的超名作。

Genres: Manga

300 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 10, 1988

About the author

Moto Hagio (萩尾望都 Hagio Moto) is a manga artist born in Ōmuta, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, though she currently lives in Saitama Prefecture.
She is considered a "founding mother" of modern shōjo manga, and a member of the Year 24 Group (24-Gumi). She helped pioneer modern shōjo manga, modern science fiction manga, and BL manga. In addition to being an "industry pioneer", her body of work "shows a maturity, depth and personal vision found only in the finest of creative artists". She has been described as "the most beloved shōjo manga artist of all time."

Moto Hagio made her professional debut in 1969 at the age of 20 with her short story Lulu to Mimi on Kodansha's magazine Nakayoshi. Later she produced a series of short stories for various magazines for Shogakukan.
Two years after her debut, she published Juichigatsu no Gimunajiumu (The November Gymnasium), a short story which dealt openly with love between two boys at a boarding school. The story was part of a larger movement by female manga artists at the time which pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men.
In 1974, Hagio developed this story into the longer Toma no shinzo (The Heart of Thomas). She was awarded the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1976 for her science fiction classic Juichinin iru! (They Were Eleven) and her epic tale Poe no ichizoku (The Poe Family).

Reviews

[Mizuki · Rating 5 out of 5]

*warning: shonen ai/platonic love between boys is mentioned in the review*

Story's outline: Inside the village of Poe a mysterious noble family takes residence with their son Edgar and ill daughter Marybelle. Edgar is quickly intrigued by Allan an heir of a transportation company, who catches his eye by almost running him over with a horse. As the story unfolds a few residents of Poe slowly begin to wonder about the new family...

Link: http://mangafox.me/manga/poe_no_ichiz...

Review:
I had never expected to find online English version of Poe no Ichizoku; it is a Japanese shojo manga published in the 1970s (so ancient!), also supposedly the first ever published shonen ai / Boy's Love manga. To me it is like stumbling upon the Holy Grail by chance.

What interested me isn't the shounen ai part, but the words of praises I'd heard from other manga fans, they said that Poe no Ichizoku is a very imaginative, dreamy tale about vampires (though the vampires call themselves The Clan of Poe, stating 'vampire' is a word of insult forced upon them by the mortals)...it was also being praised as the first generation of the Gothic girl's manga, alongside with The Bride of the Demon (Akuma no Hanayome), which I also love.

The first part of the manga deals with the vampire twin, Edgar and Marybelle's arrival to the new town and their encounter with Allan, also the vampire-hunting which resulting in the death of Edgar's family and Allan's transformation as a vampire. The second part divides into two major plotlines: one contacts a series of flashbacks, offering us insight to Edgar and Marybelle's past experience, the other one follows Edgar and Allan's footsteps as they search for a place they belong in a world of strangers, while Edgar constantly mourns Marybelle's passing and a very confused Allan struggles to come to term with his new vampiric nature.

The vampires in Poe no Ichizoku are lonely outsiders and travelers of endless time who must pretend to be mortals in order to protect their secret. The bloodshed is downplayed to make way for the sorrowful aura of loss, unbelonging and loneliness. Underneath the traditional vampire Gothic romance setting, Miss Moto developed her characters masterfully and showed us the different dimensions of personality in each main characters. Those characters are all beautifully drawn, with Marybelle appearing to be nothing less than an otherworldly fairy while both Edgar and Allan a picture of aesthetic, sensual youths straight out of the ancient Greek art  tradition, through it must be noted that Miss Moto's style and technique are old fashioned. Plus the author also proofed herself to be widely knowledgeable with fairy folklore, history and classical vampire/Gothic literature.

*plot spoiler warning*

The complicated relationship between the three main characters also intrigues me. Edgar states his twin Marybelle is the only person he loves, but it's hinted that he might have feeling for the headstrong Allan; Allan falls in love with Marybelle at first sight and the vampire twins are tempted to add Allan into their 'family'. Therefore, after Marybelle's death, Edgar eventually turns Allan into a vampire --Edgar reasons that 'It's too lonely for one person (to continue living endlessly)'--from that point onward the relationship between two boys becomes more ambiguous: in one hand Allan seems to replace Marybelle as Edgar's object of affection and care; on the other hand Edgar desperately keeps his memory of Marybelle and it is almost like Marybelle is still staying alive within her brother, so both of them can, as one person, love Allan together.

Poe no Ichizoku is a vampire tale which can definitely go shoulder to shoulder with classic such as Interview With The Vampire --at one point of the story, Edgar even takes an orphaned little girl under his and Allan's care, the same like Lestat and Louis caring for Claudia; but what gives me the thrill is the fact that the murderer of the girl's parents is no other than Edgar himself.

This series is a sadly beautiful story deals with guilt and loss, it also questions the nature of love, immortality, time and memory; with remarkable characters who would stay in your mind long after you finish the series.

[Klara Woodson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mio Dio, da dove iniziare? Partiamo dall’autrice: amo, amo, amo alla FOLLIA Moto Hagio. E’ forse la mia mangaka preferita in assoluto (si contende il primo posto con Asumiko Nakamura, ma appartengono a due generi completamente diversi e non saprei davvero scegliere), adoro tutto quello che ha disegnato. Odio l’Italia con tutta me stessa per non aver tradotto altro che questa tra le sue opere. E’ un’artista, quella che fa si chiama arte. Pura, semplice arte: sarebbe un esempio perfetto per la prefazione di Oscar Wilde a ‘Il Ritratto di Dorian Gray’. Ogni trama è meravigliosa, il suo stesso stile sembra qualcosa di vivo: cambia ad ogni opera, la prova è nei manga stessi: provate a fare un confronto tra ‘Edgar e Allan Poe’ e ‘Zankokuna Kami Ga Shihai Suru’… sembrano due persone completamente differenti, invece si tratta della stessa autrice! Personalmente, credo che questa sia una delle sue opere migliori. L’edizione italiana è stata stampata recentemente e si può trovare ancora in fumetteria, lo consiglio caldamente a tutti! E’ favoloso, i disegni stessi lasciano col fiato sospeso. Ogni foglia, ogni occhio, ogni singolo capello di ciascun personaggio sembra risplendere di luce propria… non sto scherzando, e no, non parlo di quei ridicoli effetti da manga shojo. Risplendono… di per sé. Non ci sono effetti, non ci sono ridicoli tentativi di rendere il tutto una copia commerciale di un qualche romanzo storico con occhi sbrilluccicosi e boccucce alla gatto: ogni singola tavola è presa seriamente, ogni singolo personaggio ha una dignità e una storia degna di un poema medievale. Magnifico. Semplicemente magnifico. I personaggi sono uno più spettacolare dell’altro, la trama è sottile e colma di una gentile tristezza, di riflessioni sul tempo e sulla mortalità, sulla bellezza e sulla paura. Il fatto che i personaggi siano vampiri è importante, naturalmente, ma è un elemento presente soprattutto come metafora e simbolo, non come semplice espediente per attrarre ragazzine prive di gusto. L’opera originale è piuttosto vecchia, ideata molto prima che i vampiri andassero ‘di moda’. Non ci sono smielate storielle d’amore, ragazzine incapaci, personaggi inutili come quelli di un’altra serie famosa… tristemente molto più famosa di questo manga. Sì, purtroppo è vero: la prima volta che mia madre ha letto questo volume, mi ha gentilmente fatto notare: ‘Oh, c’è un personaggio chiamato Allan Twilight! Chissà, forse l’autrice ha preso ispirazione da quei libri americani’. Giuro sui libri di Mary Renault, stavo per prendere un megafono e urlare la data 1974 come una pazza scatenata per tutta la casa. Se sentirò una sola persona ripetermi che Hagio ha preso ispirazione dalla Meyer, e non piuttosto il contrario, prenderò il primo volo per il Giappone e farò un pellegrinaggio fino alla casa della Hagio per chiederle personalmente scusa… anzi, fatelo, così per lo meno avrò una scusa per andare in Giappone. Seriamente, buttate via i romanzi della Meyer e leggete ‘Edgar e Allan Poe’ di Moto Hagio. C’è molta più ricerca, tematiche molto più profonde e personaggi molto più maturi, dal passato realistico e poetico. Non c’è assolutamente paragone.

[Shaya21 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4- stelle

[✨Sky✨ ♏ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 stars