ART + LIFE
Prospero's Manga review of The Drifting Classroom,...
Review of "Drifting Classroom, vols 1-9"
Review Type: Manga & Anime
CaBil's Rating:
4 of 5
CaBil's Rating:
4 of 5
by Kazuo Umezu
Published in the U.S. by Viz
Slugline: An entire school full of kids is transported to an alien world. No warning, no preparation, no idea where they are.
This series is rated 18+ for horror themes, but this review is all ages.
Vol. 1
The Drifting Classroom was created in the mid-70s, so the first thing a manga fan will notice is that the artwork isn't what they are used to. But if you like horror that does not rely on splatter to scare you, I encourage you to give this a try.
Like Battle Royale (or Lord of the Flies,) Classroom puts ordinary kids in grim survival situations and then spins out gruesomely realistic stories. The first volume of Classroom sets up the regrets of our hero and the initial freakout as the kids (and teachers) start to realize they aren't in Japan anymore. And who wouldn't freak, honestly? These are ordinary school kids, not ninja masters or supermecha pilots. Their screaming and crying (and the ones trying to bolt for home) set what is sure to be a gruesome stage with few survivors.
Kazuo Umezu has been a prolific manga creator creator of many horror (and science fiction, such as the adapation of Ultraman, and romance as well) titles from the 1950s straight through the 90s. If you are at all interested in what came before Sailor Moon, Voltron, or even Gatchaman, Umezu is worth looking for. I'm giving this series a preemptive "Classic" tag because of its author and his tremendous influence.
Vols. 2 & 3
Umezu-san's characters react to their extreme situation in realistic ways: some freak out, some keep a cool head, some commit suicide, some act selflessly. And many are willing to follow the lead of a strong (or brutal) personality. The body count starts rising quickly and the sixth graders have to begin taking on leadership roles and dealing with some dangerous grown-ups in their midst. Some discoveries are made about what seems to have happened and exactly how dire their situation is.
And back home, our hero's mother is, understandably, losing her mind. Or is she?
Vols. 4-6
The numbers are whittled further and further down, as tends to happen in horror stories, by increasingly strange, unlikely, and a situations that might be convincing if I didn't already know that bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas, not by touch. And believe me -- if you've got fleas, you know about it. Those kids should be itching up a storm if they've got fleas. And then there was the mummy, which starts out great, even funny, and devolves into a plot device.
But despite the occasional stretching of credulity, Umezu-sensei continues to present scathingly honest reactions to outrageous situations. We take a right turn at Lord of the Flies and head into pogrom territory -- all the more grimly realistic because history is littered with purges like this.
I thought volume 6 would be the end, but there's more to come. Our narrator is safe, we know, but will anybody else be left when it's all over?
Vols. 7-9
The kids continue to slog through their unfolding disaster, and now some gaps are starting to show in the manga-ka's apocalyptic future. The biology does not really work. Some scenes are blatant info-dumps that don't make a lot of sense in the context offered. The abilities of sixth graders are pushed to their believable limits. And the third descent into Lord of the Flies mode is not quite as interesting as the first two.
Still, there are a few character moments and interesting context in this mid-70s look at a post-apocalyptic world. In a time when Americans were worrying about nuclear war, at least one manga-ka saw climate change as a global threat.
You can read our original reviews of Drifting Classroom vol. 1, Vols. 2 & 3, and Vols. 4-6 and vols. 7-9 on ProsperosManga.com.
This is just one of the many reviews that gets posted at Prospero's Manga, a manga review site with over 300 manga and manga-related reviews. We also has previously posted reviews here and articles here on TokyoPop Online. Please come check out our new reviews, a new one every weekday on Prospero's Manga!
Drifting Classroom vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5, vol. 6, vol. 7, vol. 8 and vol. 9 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.
-Miranda
Published in the U.S. by Viz
Slugline: An entire school full of kids is transported to an alien world. No warning, no preparation, no idea where they are.
This series is rated 18+ for horror themes, but this review is all ages.
Vol. 1
The Drifting Classroom was created in the mid-70s, so the first thing a manga fan will notice is that the artwork isn't what they are used to. But if you like horror that does not rely on splatter to scare you, I encourage you to give this a try.
Like Battle Royale (or Lord of the Flies,) Classroom puts ordinary kids in grim survival situations and then spins out gruesomely realistic stories. The first volume of Classroom sets up the regrets of our hero and the initial freakout as the kids (and teachers) start to realize they aren't in Japan anymore. And who wouldn't freak, honestly? These are ordinary school kids, not ninja masters or supermecha pilots. Their screaming and crying (and the ones trying to bolt for home) set what is sure to be a gruesome stage with few survivors.
Kazuo Umezu has been a prolific manga creator creator of many horror (and science fiction, such as the adapation of Ultraman, and romance as well) titles from the 1950s straight through the 90s. If you are at all interested in what came before Sailor Moon, Voltron, or even Gatchaman, Umezu is worth looking for. I'm giving this series a preemptive "Classic" tag because of its author and his tremendous influence.
Vols. 2 & 3
Umezu-san's characters react to their extreme situation in realistic ways: some freak out, some keep a cool head, some commit suicide, some act selflessly. And many are willing to follow the lead of a strong (or brutal) personality. The body count starts rising quickly and the sixth graders have to begin taking on leadership roles and dealing with some dangerous grown-ups in their midst. Some discoveries are made about what seems to have happened and exactly how dire their situation is.
And back home, our hero's mother is, understandably, losing her mind. Or is she?
Vols. 4-6
The numbers are whittled further and further down, as tends to happen in horror stories, by increasingly strange, unlikely, and a situations that might be convincing if I didn't already know that bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas, not by touch. And believe me -- if you've got fleas, you know about it. Those kids should be itching up a storm if they've got fleas. And then there was the mummy, which starts out great, even funny, and devolves into a plot device.
But despite the occasional stretching of credulity, Umezu-sensei continues to present scathingly honest reactions to outrageous situations. We take a right turn at Lord of the Flies and head into pogrom territory -- all the more grimly realistic because history is littered with purges like this.
I thought volume 6 would be the end, but there's more to come. Our narrator is safe, we know, but will anybody else be left when it's all over?
Vols. 7-9
The kids continue to slog through their unfolding disaster, and now some gaps are starting to show in the manga-ka's apocalyptic future. The biology does not really work. Some scenes are blatant info-dumps that don't make a lot of sense in the context offered. The abilities of sixth graders are pushed to their believable limits. And the third descent into Lord of the Flies mode is not quite as interesting as the first two.
Still, there are a few character moments and interesting context in this mid-70s look at a post-apocalyptic world. In a time when Americans were worrying about nuclear war, at least one manga-ka saw climate change as a global threat.
You can read our original reviews of Drifting Classroom vol. 1, Vols. 2 & 3, and Vols. 4-6 and vols. 7-9 on ProsperosManga.com.
This is just one of the many reviews that gets posted at Prospero's Manga, a manga review site with over 300 manga and manga-related reviews. We also has previously posted reviews here and articles here on TokyoPop Online. Please come check out our new reviews, a new one every weekday on Prospero's Manga!
Drifting Classroom vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3, vol. 4, vol. 5, vol. 6, vol. 7, vol. 8 and vol. 9 are all available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.
-Miranda
2 of 2 users found this review helpful
Battle Royale and the Lord of the Flies were for wussies!
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