My favourite manga is Kozue Amano’s Aqua (later titled Aria). In the second year of my degree, it was a moment of calm in a hurricane, and that’s the word I’d use to sum up the manga: calm. Doesn’t sound like exciting material for a favourite manga, does it?
Good art has a way of mirroring the situation we’re in when we consume it. I remember, when I watched the anime series Sketchbook: Full Color's, every time before I watched it I had to make myself a big mug of rooibos tea and I’d sit and I’d sip my tea and, in the anime, the characters would sip their tea and it’d be a gentle break at the end of a hectic exam day. Whenever I drink rooibos tea now I get that scent and it takes me back to that anime and that time in my life. Every good tea is associated with a good memory.
The premise of Aqua is simple. Aqua is slice of life in the truest sense. The story follows Araki, a new arrival on a future Mars, as she learns how to be an undine (a gondola boat-lady and tour guide) in the tranquil city of Neo-Venezia, a futurey rebuilding of the canal-laced city of Venice. Each instalment follows some often unremarkable day of her life, introducing us to the people who live and visit the city, the rituals and traditions that occur there, and the beautiful sights and sounds of life on future Mars.
A fairly typical example of an instalment finds Akari helping an old man locate his son and daughter-in-law who he’s lost track of. Under the pretence of helping the man find his son, Akari lures him onto her gondola before using the situation as an excuse to give him a complimentary tour of the city. The man, initially grumpy and irascible, softens as he is introduced to the dreamy city. They eat baked potato, explore the winding canals, and discuss whether mopping the floors ruins life. Finally, after the wearing down of his hard shell, the man looks up at leaves falling off a tree and is struck by a moment of beauty.
This technique is common throughout Aqua. Gentle story beats lead the reader through breezy, easy panels of the comic with less-detailed art until finally the comic opens up into a great one or two page-wide vista with luscious art and lots of detail. The story invites the reader to pause, to breathe, to be mindful, and just to enjoy some nice art. Reading the story is like floating down a gentle stream and occasionally coming out into a clearing and seeing a beautiful panorama around you. I like to spend a few minutes on each of these pages just soaking them in.
It really is master craftsmanship. The manga is about taking life slowly. It’s about finding beauty in the little things. It’s about being present in the moment and being struck by life’s beauty. The story-telling technique is perfectly harmonious with the story. The comic invites us to be one with the characters, to stop and appreciate the scenery along with them. It teaches us not to be like the old man but like Araki and trains us to look at the world with child-like wonder.
There’s an anime adaptation of Aqua called Aria the Animation. It’s quite good in its own right sticking reasonably faithfully to the story of Aria and having its own very dreamy air to it. When this anime first aired it was shown on TV at a time when most TVs didn’t pause. When the creators of the show made Aria the Animation they were limited in their ability to present nice vistas and have viewers take as much time as they want to soak in the scenery simply because TV as a medium does not allow a creator to do that. If they held a nice scene up there for 30 seconds, for some viewers that would be too long and boring, for others it would be too short and fail to have the desired effect.
Simply put, the story of Aqua with its storytelling technique does not work in the medium of TV. I appreciate what the creators of the anime tried to do but, for me, the show cannot hold a candle to the brilliance that is the manga.
It seems like not every story can be told in every medium.
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