A few years ago, when I reviewed A Beautiful Day for a Godzilla Sandwich, I thought a girl’s manga about kaiju was pretty unique. I didn’t really expect to find any more of them, though I did not really like Godzilla Sandwich so much anyway, so I can also honestly say I was not really hoping for more shojo-goji-crossovers. Still, when I heard about Inikai Suru Koto Naku, Juujitsu Shita Hibi, I was pretty intrigued. It sounded kind of charming to be honest—a school-life story of a schoolgirl kaiju fan. The original series was serialized in Young Magazine and created by Shigoto Nora (this was the only manga I could find from her), and has been collected in two tankobon. After reading through the first book, I can definitely say it’s charming, if kind of slight.
First, let’s take a little look at the title: Inikai Suru Koto Naku, Juujitsu Shita Hibi means something along the lines of Days of Fulfillment, Without Any Worry… but author Nora Shigoto is having some fun here. In two of the words, “Inikai” (an unusual word for “worry”) and “juujitu” (“fulfilled”), she has snuck in the kanji for the word “kaiju” instead of the actual kanji used for those words. How to translate this is kind of challenging, but it might be something like, “Without Any Beastly Times, Full-to-Monster-Size Days.” To be even more accurate, you would have to deliberately misspell some words in the title to include the words “monster”—so, uh, maybe “Don’t Worry About it, Mon—These Ster-Crazy Days!” Okay, that was pretty bad, but I tried.
And the title kind of gives an idea of the feel of the comic. This is a slice-of-life story of two outcast girls who discover who they are and grow up together in high school despite or even because of the various stressors and obnoxious situations they encounter there. I went all-out on this one and tried to give a really detailed run-down of the entire book, so check out the summary below:
Chapter one: Gamera is Also Terrible, huh?
We open with a scene at an all-girls junior high school, and soon our attention is drawn to two young girls who are sitting near one another in class. One, a blonde girl, is looking at her cell phone and is annoyed about something. The other, far less fashionable, is reading a kaiju-related book. Soon the blonde girl lets out a big sigh, and then begins complaining about how hot it is and how listless she feels. The other girls in the class gossip about the two girls, and we finally learn their names.
The blonde girl is named Erika Kitagawa (north river), and the other girls complain that all she ever talks about is boys, that it’s terrible to be in the same class with her, and that it’s really hard to get close to her. The other girl they tentatively identify as Kurata, and they just feel sorry for her because she has to sit next to Kitagawa.
As Kitagawa continues to complain about class, Kurata is absorbed in reading her book, and the current page is about the Showa Gamera films, and includes pictures of Gamera, Guiron, Viras, and Zigra. Kurata is extremely happy, and thinks to herself that she is happy she bought this book. Kitagawa announces that she is going out with her boyfriend the next day, but Kurata is now looking at a picture of Legion. Kurata is driven to ecstasy just looking at the book and thinking about how Legion is like an insect/crustacean, and she starts bobbing her head up and down. Kitagawa notices this, and thinks that Kurata looks like a turtle, and says the word “turtle” aloud, prompting Kurata to look up whether Gamera (in the Heisei films) was a turtle or not. According to her cellphone, Gamera is not necessarily a turtle, which confuses here—“But he’s named Gamera!” Kurata continues to learn about the evolving and powerful form of Gamera as it fights to protect the earth.
Meanwhile, Kitagawa is frustrated because her phone is dying, and says she may get a new phone soon—while Kurata is busy thinking about how powerful Gamera is. Kitagawa gets a message on her phone from her boyfriend Atsushi that he is canceling their date for tomorrow, which sets Kitagawa into a rage (much to the amusement of her classmates—well, other than Kurata, who is more interested in her book so far).
The mirth of her classmates sets Kitagawa off even more, and she kicks a desk, silencing the snickering. However, Kurata suddenly takes an interest in a turtle accessory on Kitagawa’s cell phone, and tries to get a closer look. Kitagawa thinks Kurata is trying to read her messages to her boyfriend, and tells Kurata not to look, but Kurata (apparently oblivious) keeps awkwardly straining to get a closer look at the turtle bauble.
Kitagawa realizes that Kurata is interested in the turtle bauble, and says that it’s just a souvenir from Hawaii. Kurata thinks that the bauble is just something to deceive children, and that Gamera is much more beautiful. Kitagawa continues to mope about the canceled date. Kurata looks out the window and thinks that the distant city looks like a miniature, and then begins to imagine that Gamera is attacking the school.
The first chapter ends with Kitagawa noticing that Kurata is staring outside, and thus Kitagawa takes a look as well and wonders if tomorrow will be rain as an imaginary Gamera flies away in the distance.
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| Flying Hedorah makes an appearance in Kurata's fantasy life. |
Chapter 2: Hedorah’s Smog Balls
The story opens with Kurata in PE class, and she is supposed to find a partner to do stretches with. All around her girls excitedly pair up until there is no one for Kurata to partner up with except Kitagawa. The two girls kind of look at each other, but they don’t join together to do the exercise. This prompts their coach/teacher to order them to pair up with each other.
Kitagawa deliberately rebels against the command, walks over to the wall, and sits down. The coach begins to protest, but then he just tells the girls to start the exercise, leaving Kurata alone. While girls in pairs all around perform the exercises, Kurata sits by herself and thinks about Godzilla vs. Hedorah, the DVD of which she recently rewatched. For her, the scene in which Godzilla flies retains its impact no matter how many times she has seen it. She is obliviously daydreaming about the scene when someone yells out that she is getting in the way.
The coach walks around amongst the girls, then chooses one pair who are having trouble stretching. He pushes them from behind, trying to get them to stretch more, which freaks them out into a fit of laughter, screaming, and accusations of sexual harassment.
Kurata is now sitting against the wall a little ways from Kitagawa, imagining that Godzilla is walking by outside. She thinks to herself that it’s better for Godzilla to walk than to fly. Kitagawa just looks at her phone and declares she is sleepy.
In the next scene, Kurata and Kitagawa are supposed to clean the kitchen during lunch period because they didn’t do the exercises in PE. The teacher continuously badgers Kitagawa, who ignores him. Kurata cleans by herself, pouring scraps down the drain. The teacher grabs Kitagawa by the arm and drags her out of the room to talk with her in private.
The teacher (called “Okamo” by his students) asks about whether Kitagawa is becoming friends with Kurata, and he tries to encourage Kitagawa to change her attitude so she can get along better with the other girls as well. She doesn’t want to talk or listen to him, but as he talks with her, he puts his hand on her shoulder. Some of the other students find Okamo and Kitagawa standing together, and Kitagawa immediately shies away from the teacher. The other girls wonder what the teacher and Kitagawa were doing together.
As the other students ask about what Okamo ate for lunch (“Did you eat yakisoba? We can see the seaweed in your teeth!” “I’ll brush my teeth”), Kitagawa disgustedly brushes off her shoulder where Okamo had touched her and spits out, “Too disgusting!”
Meanwhile, Kurata continues cleaning in the kitchen. She imagines Hedorah emerging from the drain, and remembers that the Smog Monster has dangerous sludge balls that can hurt people. She imagines Godzilla and Smoggy fighting, then pictures Hedorah in flight mode soaring over the school and reducing Okamo and two students into white skeletons. Kurata does her best to wash the drain as a means of fighting against Hedorah.
Kitagawa comes in and sees Kurata working happily away, so Kitagawa grabs her bag to leave, then pauses. She comes up behind Kurata, declares the sink incredibly dirty, and grabs Okamo’s toothbrush from a nearby cup and uses it to clean the sink, despite Kurata’s protests. Kitagawa furiously cleans the sink with the toothbrush, and then abruptly declares the job finished and departs while Kurata watches, dumbstruck.
The last scene of chapter two shows Okamo brushing his teeth…
Chapter 3: In Order to Charge Forward
The third chapter opens with Kitagawa being dropped off at school by her boyfriend in his car. As she steps sleepily away from his vehicle, he calls after her to wait. He throws a bouquet of roses into her hands, and states that he thought that they fit her well, and then speeds off. Kitagawa is disgusted, spluttering and angry, unsure what to do with the flowers. Kurata comes into the school after her and is confused to see her so upset.
Kitagawa finds a dumpster while complaining loudly about her crazy beau. She hesitates for a moment, uncertain if she really wants to throw the flowers away, when she overhears a pair of girls gossiping about her and her boyfriend and the flowers. In response, she opens the dumpster and throws the roses inside before stomping off.
Kurata, apparently having followed her up to this point, retrieves the roses and imagines that the bouquet is really Biollante. Kurata goes over Biollante’s background as the daughter of a scientist who combined her cells with those of a plant and with cells from Godzilla’s body, creating the monster. Kurata is afraid that just throwing away such a monster will have bad consequences. She thinks that Biollante has returned to its flower form and may not move any more, and so she puts the flowers next to the dumpster.
Meanwhile, Kitagawa has called her boyfriend and is complaining about the flowers again, heckling and berating the man on the other side of the phone. The whole rose episode has gotten both Kitagawa and Kurata late to class, and the teacher asks them both to sit down. Today is a cleaning day, and so all the students are expected to do things like collecting the trash and throwing it out—including the stuff from the dumpster. Kitagawa looks out into the courtyard and sees the bouquet out in the open again, much to her consternation. Kurata, meanwhile, just sees Biollante.
The janitor shows up to take away the garbage from the dumpster, and both Kitagawa and Kurata watch nervously—Kitagawa apparently nervous that the older man will take her flowers, and Kurata worried that Biollante will kill the older man. Well, he doesn’t notice the flowers, and just drops off some trash and leaves.
Nevertheless, Kitagawa is concerned about who might have moved the flowers without her noticing. Kurata wants to move the flowers to a safer place. Then, interrupting their thoughts, several unnamed girls approach Kurata and ask her to clean in their place because they have something they need to do. As the girls cloyingly try to pawn off their duties on Kurata, a third girl appears and accuses them of shirking their responsibilities, and the newcomer and the other two girls argue. One of the two lazy girls asks Kurata for confirmation about their half of the story, but Kurata is deep in thought about Biollante and she is watching Kitagawa take the rose bouquet next to the dumpster and moving to deposit it inside the trash receptacle.
Kurata, panicked, dashes away from the quibbling trio, making a beeline for the courtyard. She runs past Okamo, who chastises her for running in the hallways. She pays him no heed and just rushes by. Kurata keeps running, but then trips on a rock and scratches her knee. As she gets up, she remembers the scene in which Biollante emerges from the ground to attack, and she uses the image as an inspiration to run faster, as if she is charging. When she finds Kitagawa, she has placed the roses into a watering vessel, and Kitagawa eyes Kurata coolly.
After a moment’s hesitation, Kitagawa gives the watering vessel and the flowers to Kurata. Kurata takes the flowers and places them in the back of their classroom. The last scene shows Kurata looking pleased in class while Kitagawa sleeps and several other classmates look disparagingly on.
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| Kurata stands in for Rodan in a famous scene from the classic film. |
Chapter 4: Maybe Rodan is Coming
On another day, a news flash has declared that a rainstorm is on the way and the students need to go home. Kurata goes to stand in front of the school wearing her rain gear, and daydreams that the wind of the story may mark the coming of Rodan. As Kurata stands in the wind, several girls walking by are complaining, and one wishes that she had an older boyfriend with a car who could take her anywhere.
Meanwhile, Kitagawa is sitting in an unladylike pose on the stairs and is in the midst of a phone call with her paramour. Said love boy has just announced that he cannot come to pick her up, much to her chagrin. When Kitagawa asks as to why her man can’t come to pick her up, he says it is because of his wife. Once again Kitagawa explodes, berating the two-timer and declaring that had she known he was hitched, she would never have dated him. Her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend tells her that he is coming right over to talk with her a bit, and we see this is a new man named Takaaki—not the same boy she was with in the last chapter.
While Okamo seems to be arguing with someone about who will come to take the students home, the weather gets worse—to rain, with stronger winds. At first Kurata thinks that maybe this kind of wind is comparable to the wind storms caused by Rodan in flight, but as she considers the size of Rodan, she imagines that he really has arrived, perhaps to chastise her. She huddles in the rain and begs forgiveness (I think—I was a little confused here). Kurata then remembers the scene in which the Rodans are trapped in the volcano and the military assault, and she thinks that if Rodan really does show up, it will cause a lot of damage, but that is just a risk they will have to take. She grabs the edges of her plastic rain coat and begins flapping as if she is Rodan.
Kitagawa, for her part, is still waiting as well. She has just received a message from her cheating boyfriend, who claims he has talked with his wife and wants to meet one more time Kitagawa. She deletes the message, goes outside, and promptly the wind blasts her umbrella inside out, ruining it. The boyfriend calls again, pleading with her to meet him. Kitagawa is in a foul mood. Then, she notices Kurata, blithely romping about in the pouring rain, pretending to fly with an innocent grin on her face.
This makes Kitagawa smile and actually laugh a little, despite the misery of her situation. She walks up behind Kurata and asks her what she is doing. Just at that moment, the boyfriend shows up in his car. Kitagawa walks up to him, takes his phone, and calls his wife, then tells her that she is her cheating husband’s high school girlfriend. The cheating hubby is flabbergasted and shocked, and in trying to placate his incensed wife, tells her he is coming home now. Kitagawa and Kurata walk together while Kurata continues playing “Rodan,” and suddenly the rain stops.
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| Kurata realizes that Melon bread kind of looks like a turtle... and thus, Gamera! |
Chapter 5: Gamera, Maybe
The chapter opens with several unnamed girls looking for Kurata in hopes of inviting her to eat with them—but Kurata has disappeared. They wanted to invite her because she seemed so pitiful all by herself.
But Kurata is on the rooftop, going over a notebook full of stats and details about Gamera and his foes. While she eats a big onigiri, she compares the Showa Gamera with the Heisei Gamera. She thinks that the Showa Gamera is cute and surprisingly violent, whereas the Heisei Gamera is definitely cooler.
Kitagawa is also on the roof, lying on her back, and her stomach grumbles because she is so hungry. Kurata looks at her onigiri, perhaps considering sharing, but Kitagawa says she is going to go buy some bread.
When Kitagawa makes to exit from the roof, she hears voices of a pair of girls coming, and she stops. The two girls are surprised and perhaps none too happy to find Kitagawa on the roof, although one of the girls—Sae—recognizes Kitagawa from her old school when they attended together in junior high and Kitagawa was her junior. Sae claims that Kitagawa really stuck out in a bad way.
The two girls engage Kitagawa, asking her if she is eating alone on the roof, and Kitagawa says she was just about to go buy some bread while thinking rude thoughts. Sae says that Kitagawa is too mature and so the normal girls have a hard time getting close to her, and Sae’s friend says Kitagawa is lucky to know Sae because Sae was scouted for modeling since she was a third year student in junior high.
Kurata, meanwhile, has made a list of Showa Gamera monsters and is poring over them. She thinks to herself that no matter what, Gamera always fights on alone—even if he gets frozen, even if he gets skewered and starts to fall apart, he keeps fighting on and on.
The two girls invite Kitagawa to eat with them, though Kitagawa does not look especially interested… Suddenly the two girls notice Kurata, and wonder aloud how long she has been there, and they start shouting at her, “Hey Black Hair! Hey!” Kurata is entranced, seeing the figure of Gamera in the clouds.
Sae’s friend blows up, yelling, “Can you hear? Hey!” At first Sae tries to calm down her friend, but the second girl says that she found this place especially for Sae. Sae finds all this amusing and lets it continue, so the second girl does so, saying to Kurata, “Look, I don’t know what you’re doing, but could you get out of here? That stuff you did, ignoring us, I really can’t believe it.”
Sae asks her friend to go get Kurata, but then Kitagawa stops her—and Kitagawa is royally ticked off! Up until this point, Sae and her friend continually have been calling Kitagawa “Erippe-chan,” and now Kitagawa says “Erippe” is a really lame name, and tells them to stop calling her that in formal “desu/masu” Japanese, indicating that she is distancing herself from them deliberately.
Sae asks if the black haired girl is Kitagawa’s friend and apologizes, giving Kitagawa her own baked goods she had bought for lunch as a token of peace. Sae and her friend leave, commenting on how scary Kitagawa can be. After a pensive moment, Kitagawa goes and joins Kurata, telling her to relax, nothing bad will happen—but then asks her to take off the lame vest she is wearing, since no one else wears it.
Kitagawa then declares how disgusted she is with girls like that who can’t do anything for themselves as she and Kurata sit together on the roof. Kurata gazes at Kitagawa, suddenly admiring the other girl. She sees the Showa Gamera in Kitagawa, and starts smiling. Kitagawa notices, and states directly to her face that she won’t share her melon bread with Kurata. Kurata, meanwhile, pictures Gamera made of melon bread taking off into the sky. The end.
Chapter 6: Fury of Godzilla
As chapter six opens, a pair of curious girls has cornered Kurata in the classroom and are asking her if she is a good friend with Kitagawa. When Kurata does not answer, the two girls assume that Kurata is not really good friends with Kitagawa, and they ask her to join their excursion group, and they are excited to become friends. While this is going on, Kitagawa enters the classroom and watches the conversation unfold. Kurata looks back at her, concerned. Kitagawa pushes through them to sit at her desk, but the two girls mostly ignore her.
Then the reason for why they are being friendly to Kurata comes to light: The girls want to pawn off their chores on her, and ask her to take a big pile of papers to the personnel room. When Kurata quietly acquiesces and begins to carry the huge stack by herself out of the room, the girls chortle to themselves—“Wow. She could carry that whole thing by herself.” “Hee hee hee.” “Using your “friends”—haha!”
Of course Kitagawa hears all of their mockery, and she won’t take it. Or rather, she is upset that the two girls won’t take it (the pile of papers) and basically says, “You jackasses carry the papers yourselves!” The girls have the temerity to come back with, “This has nothing to do with you!” Kitagawa gets really, really angry, and Kurata sees the Godzilla from GMK as a personification of her anger aura. The two girls then try to convince Kitagawa that they are really just Kurata’s friends… Kitagawa explodes with rage, kicking over a desk and causing the girls to freak and Kurata to fall over and hurt her knee. Just then the teacher comes in, and the two girls (why can’t they have names????) tell the teacher what Kitagawa did, blaming the injury on her. Kitagawa noticed Kurata’s bloody knee.
The teacher takes Kurata and Kitagawa to the nurse. The teacher thinks the injury is not too serious, but he can’t find the nurse. Kurata and Kitagawa sit together on a couch, though they do not sit close to each other. Kitagawa, looking down, tells Kurata to take care of the injury so it doesn’t scar. But Kitagawa’s hand also somehow got injured (I really have no idea how she injured her hand by kicking the desk with her foot). Kitagawa tells Kurata that her hand is just sprained and will heal soon, but Kurata, being the sweet kid she is, fetches some bandages and begins wrapping Kitagawa’s hand for her.
Kurata begins thinking about Godzilla and compares Kitagawa to Godzilla again. I think that Kurata basically is thinking here about how Godzilla doesn’t always attack, but that he was birthed by the actions of human beings (nuclear testing), then attacked out of irrational animal feeling, but then ultimately humanity buried Godzilla in return despite the fact that it was humanity’s fault that Godzilla attacked in the first place.
Kitagawa tells Kurata that it’s okay to turn people down, and that the two girls who said that they were her friends really just wanted to use Kurata for their own ends. Again, Kurata sees the rage of Godzilla in Kitagawa, and she doesn’t say anything. Kitagawa lies down on the couch and says she is going to sleep and that when she wakes up she is going home. Kurata watches over the sleeping Kitagawa and thinks to herself, “Is Godzilla injured?” The teacher returns and says that the nurse does not seem to be in today, and asks if she can return to the classroom.
Kurata returns by herself, and from the hall she overhears a bunch of catty girls who are snarking about Kitagawa in the classroom, wondering why the little spitfire got angry this time. Maybe it was because the nameless mean girls were going to take Kurata away from her. Wait, does that mean that Kurata and Kitagawa are good friends? No way! It’s too bad, Kurata is now our friend, and that means she is our gofer! Kitagawa really made a mess of the classroom, so let’s have Kurata clean up when she gets back! Hahahahaha!
As Kurata listens to the snark sisters harp on, she remembers Kitagawa’s warnings (and pictures Godzilla talking), and finally Kurata herself begins to get angry. The snark sisters start to exit, and they run into Kurata. “Oh, how long have you been there?” says one. “She didn’t overhear, did she?” thinks another. “How is your injury?” “That Kitagawa is the worst!” “I’m glad you could come back to the classroom!” “Yeah, it’s great!” “Here are those papers for you to carry from before!” “When you are done with that, please clean up the classroom as well!”
Kurata sees Godzilla again, and remembers that Kitagawa said that these girls just wanted to use her, and finally her anger overflows, and she drops the huge stack of papers on the floor. Kurata is so angry that she throws some of the papers around, picturing herself as Godzilla blasting a city with his nuclear breath—but she doesn’t actually say a word. The snark sisters are scared, and they gather the papers themselves and apologize as they run away. Then Kurata slumps in the window, exhausted from getting angry. As she slumps in the window, she sees Kitagawa leaving the school.
Once again she pictures Godzilla, and thinks to herself that Godzilla is the despair of humanity, but also at the same time Godzilla reaches out a hand to teach humanity a lesson. And now Godzilla returns to the sea. Kurata salutes out the window to Kitagawa. The end of chapter six.
Chapter 7: Mothra is Mothra
A girl and a dude are in a rental store, looking for a good DVD to borrow for a fine evening of entertainment. The girl asks the dude if they can rent Yuki and Badger and the Fairies (a parody of Frozen, actually). And the dude is like, “Good choice.” The girl is like, “I like the scenes where the fairies talk with the animals in the forest! It’s soooo cute!” The dude is like, “Yeah, cute!”
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| A very nice depiction of Mothra! |
Meanwhile, Kurata has decided to rent Mothra (1962), and her reasoning (perhaps having overheard the girl and the dude) is because the twin fairies can communicate with Mothra telepathically and can also talk with kaiju! Also, Mothra is really cute!
As Kurata takes the Mothra DVD, she overhears the dude say something about the director of Yuki and Badger, and the girl is all totally, “wow, really?” Kitagawa appears, stating that the girl’s personality is the worst, that she is trying too hard, and that she sees blood (I think).
“That jerk Takumi,” Kitagawa says. “He was already dating that kind of girl. He leaves me and secretly goes to the rental store to date her. He always wants to come here for a date—no class! I don’t want to see him anymore!”
Kitagawa says she wants to get going as soon as possible, but Kurata decides she wants to rent all three Heisei Mothra films as well as the original. (Kitagawa thinks her own clothes are pretty lame, too… perhaps she still likes Takumi and really is just jealous.) The couple continues to flirt (“If you watch this one, you’ll definitely cry!” “Oh, really? Takkun, please tell me your recommendations!”) Kitagawa observes that guys always fall for that kind of girl—feminine, always smiling at the dude… Kitagawa wonders if she acted like that, then maybe her relationships would go smoother. She remembers back to when she was dating Takumi, and how he recommended Yuki and Badger, but that Kitagawa had insisted on watching Human Millipede instead—“Any complaints?” she asked in a deadly voice. “No, no,” came his reply. (Yeah… I can see why they broke up.) Kitagawa decides there is no way she could do the whole “cute girl” thing—she has actually come back to the store to rent Human Millipede 2. (The Human Millipede DVD cover art is amusing—the first one has a series of humans attached by the hands, the second has them randomly flopped on the floor with hands or feet attached to each other.)
The couple still hasn’t left—the offensively cute girl suggests to “Takkun” that they get some tea at Sutaba (Starbucks) and go home. Kitagawa is all like, “Let’s get out of her pronto!” Just then a huge moth lands on the cute girl’s hair! Cute girl freaks out and asks “Takkun” to take care of it! Takumi decides to try to use his hat to catch the moth… but Kurata springs into action, feeling it is her duty to try to save “Mothra”! Kitagawa is aghast that Kurata is going to go try to save the moth, and naturally the little kaiju-loving girl kind of makes a big spectacle of herself as she tries to get at the moth, which seems to have taken a liking to the girl’s hair, while Takumi proves himself pretty useless.
As Takumi and the cute girl become increasingly confused by Kurata, Kitagawa steps in to clear things up—which freaks out Takumi for some reason. As Kitagawa reaches towards the couple (presumably to scare the moth away), Takumi steps up and is all like, “Stop right there! Don’t come any closer!” This… kind of confuses Kitagawa, and while everyone is standing awkwardly around, the moth just up and flies away by itself—and Takumi’s GF is all, “WTF, bro?” (loose translation)
The moth then lands in Kurata’s hands, and she is pretty pleased at the outcome! Cute girlfriend is impressed that Kurata and Kitagawa helped out, and Takumi very stiltedly thanks Kitagawa, and then each pair of movie lovers goes their own way.
Kitagawa and Kurata sit down on a brick outcropping, and Kitagawa loudly complains about her inability to become something that she isn’t—while also admitting she does not wish to actually become like the cute girl from before. Kurata, meanwhile, continues to examine the moth, thinking to herself that even from the egg our future selves are decided—moths become moths, Mothras become Mothras… and presumably Kitagawas become Kitagawas. Kurata then identifies the moth in one of her very few spoken lines—a Japanese oak silkmoth, which Kurata further notes is the kind of moth upon which Mothra’s design was based. Kitagawa asks if the moth has poison or anything, but Kurata is again deep in thought (this pair never really talk to each other despite being friends), this time about how Japanese oak moths do not eat once reaching maturity, and thus become continuously weaker. Kurata thinks maybe it used some of its final strength to reach them.
But then the moth flies away once more, and Kurata says that maybe if they (the couple from before I think) had more colorful clothes, then maybe more people would like them. Kitagawa lets out a long sigh. The end.
And that is the end of the first volume. A second volume has also been released in Japan, but I haven’t read it yet. We’ll have to get to that next time.
But as you can see from the story, it is kind of a slow-moving tale of friendship and ostracization. Within the fandom, again I can draw some connections to I Want to Marry Godzilla and Have His Children and that novel’s main character Zoey, with Kurata standing in for Zoey’s nerd side and Kitagawa standing in for Zoey’s “bad luck with romance” side. The story also reminded me a little bit of Tokusatsu Gagaga, a manga published in Weekly Big Comic Spirits by Niwa Tanba about an office lady who is a huge fan of Super Sentai, but who hides it from everyone in her life because she is so embarrassed. With Inikai, however, Kurata does not seem to be embarrassed of her fandom… but she also does not seem to be “all there.” She seems like an utterly innocent, kind-hearted but extremely naïve and childlike (perhaps even somewhat autistic) young girl. She almost never talks, but one comes away with the impression that she isn’t really hiding her fandom so much as that she just operates mostly in her own fantasy world.
If Kurata is supposed to have a mental difficulty of some kind, I did not feel that she was being portrayed especially for laughs. Yes, her actions are funny and strange, but her character comes across as sincere and innocent rather than just idiotic and worthy of derision. For me, too, Kurata seems to represent a precious part of real kaiju fandom, as I and other fans I know have often noted that autistic people (for example) make up a surprising percent of the kaiju fanbase. To actually see a comic in which one of the main characters kind of represents that precious part of the fanbase (intentionally or not) is actually kind of cool.
Moving on, the relationship between Kurata and Kitagawa is handled reasonably well, as each girl slowly grows to accept and value the other. It is a little difficult to fully buy into their relationship sometimes, though, given that Kurata almost never speaks to Kitagawa, even when Kitagawa asks her questions directly.
Kitagawa for her part is somewhat less likable because she seems fairly one-note. She is always angry, always exploding into a rage, always dating and getting mad at the endless parade of loser boyfriends. We do get glimpses of Kitagawa’s softer side, too, such as when she is reluctant to throw away the roses or when she shows frustration with her own personality. We also get to see that she likes horror movies, which at least is a small glimpse into her bigger life (though it seems like yet another example of her anti-social character).
Everyone else in the story, though… One dimensional or less. All the other girls in class seem to be stuck up and awful. The teachers are cardboard background fill-ins except for Okamoto, but he just drops out of the story after the first couple chapters. I wish there had been a bit more depth to the supporting cast.
The art is a big mixed bag. Nora is not really that good at drawing the human figure, so the various girls often look stiff or a bit off so far as proportions go. The art is not exactly dynamic, and the storytelling suffers somewhat from the pedestrian composition. Still, the actual monsters often look really quite good. Mothra especially looks fantastic, and Nora (or her assistants) capture the respective designs of Showa and Heisei Gamera very effectively. On the other hand, GMK Godzilla looks wrong, with shapeless and ugly renditions that never quite capture the right look. Also, the monster art is a different style from the character work—much more detailed and realistic—so it can clash a little bit.
Inikai follows the tradition of All Monsters Attack and tells a touching, if in this case a bit shallow, story of bullying, friendship, sorrow, and hope. While deeply uneven, and featuring some questionable artwork at times, nevertheless fans looking for something different, and who like slice-of-life with a touch of kaiju, will find something to enjoy here, even if it isn’t quite fulfilling. |
