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Summary: You guys have it all wrong...
Review: In reading all these reviews I think you all have this book wrong a little. Everyone seems to think the old man is twisted, wily and cunning. People are commenting on how he seems not to have any motivation.I saw the old man as having the mind of a child. He did what he did for childish reasons and didn't understand the right or wrong of it. He thought the sound of a baby hitting the pavement from a few stories up would be nice; he wasn't trying to be evil or anything like that. I think that this gives the book a really eerie feeling (on top of all the other great qualities listed before) because he must be stopped, but he's like a small kid who doesn't even understand why he's being punished. Great book, highly recommended. Peace,
D
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Summary: After (or before or during) Akira, read this
Review: The name "Otomo" is generally associated with either the epic comic Akira or the movie based on the comic. But before he dazzled everyone in the entire world with that masterpiece he did this small (for him, about three hundred pages . . .) comic that manages to nearly equal Akira on several levels. The length gives it a certain tightness and intensity even when the story isn't moving that fast (which is rare) and you hardly notice that as you're reading pages are flying past. The story reads like a sort of prelude to Akira, involving people with psychic powers, especially kids. What makes it different is the setting . . . the story takes place in a large apartment complex that is almost a character in itself, its massive blocky bulk looming over everyone and everything, the spreads of the entire apartment are some of the best comic art I've ever seen. In this rather condensed space an old man with psychic powers is terrorizing everyone for the sheer heck of it . . . he's not so much evil as a senile old man with no sense of right or wrong, he acts purely on demented whim and with his powers he can do just about anything. Until one day a small girl who also happens to have psychic abilities shows up and soon the sparks are flying as the two of them wind up dueling, with the entire apartment as a battleground (you'll never see an elevator the same way again) while the cops try to figure out just what is happening before the entire place explodes. The art is spectacular and easily up to Akira's standards, especially when stuff starts to blow up (which it does often) and Otomo's view of dreary apartment life adds that all important social commentary at the same time. Few comics are as visually and intelluctually gripping as this one and if you have only a passing interest in Akira, or even science fiction in general (it won an international SF award, the Grand Prix) you would do well to pick this up.
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Summary: A word from the translator
Review: When I got into translating and publishing Japanese comics in America ten years ago, Domu was on my short list of manga I wished to work on. I was fortunate enough to get my wish, and I remain very proud of the translation work we (Dana Lewis and myself) did on Domu. Tomoko Saito's superb lettering (which also includes the very difficult task of replacing the sound effects and retouching the art) was also a work of love. I've translated 20,000 pages of manga in the last ten years, but Domu remains in my top three!
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Summary: It's always the quiet ones...
Review: Wow. Just... wow. Once you pick up Domu, you'll find that you blaze through it very quickly, but that at the same time, each scene will leave a marked impression on you. Domu takes place in modern-day Tokyo, and is centered around a monolithic housing complex which has had more than its fair share of mysterious deaths. Suicides, accidental deaths, murders, and deaths which have not even been able to be classified... an inordinate number of people seem to meet untimely ends at the Tsutsumi Public Housing Complex. The police are stymied, as well they should be when faced with exceedingly violent suicides and building jumpers who somehow manage to get onto the roof through a locked door. And the residents are increasingly uneasy. What nobody knows is that senile little Cho Uchida, abandoned by his family, living alone, with the mind of a child, is the force behind these mysterious deaths. Possessing great extrasensory powers, Uchida sees the tenants of the Tsutsumi Public Housing Complex as his toys, to torment, or to kill, as his childish whim dictates. That is, until a little girl by the name of Etsuko moves into the complex. Armed with powers of her own, Etsuko is appalled by the things she sees (and senses) Uchida doing, and declares war. Soon the entire complex is trapped in the midst of the battle between these two mental giants, and between the death of innocents and the destruction wreaked in offensive and defensive measures by the two combatants... the housing complex, and some of the people investigating the mystery deaths, will never be the same again. Though Katsuhiro Otomo is probably best known for his work on Akira, Domu should definitely stand out as a meaningful, powerful work in its own right. Gorgeous artwork and a story made all the more chilling by the childlike temperaments of the main characters make Domu a story well worth reading.
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