You may remember Battan from Run Away With Me Girl, all three volumes of which were reviewed here on Okazu by Guest Reviewer Matt Rolf. Well, Battan is back with a new series that is unique and uncomfortable in equal parts.
Fatale Game, Volume 1 (ファタールゲーム) is the story of Tainaka Seri, a one-hit wonder of a manga artists. Her first story was a massive hit and she’s been in a slump every since. When she gets a new editor she is ready to leave the manga world altogether, until she meets Fukami Sumire, her incredibly passionate new editor. Proclaiming her love for “Nanakusa”‘s work, Fukami begins to light a fire in Seri.
But that fire, clearly, is also likely to burn.
Fukami is passionate, yes, claiming to be moved to tears by Seri’s work, but she also is a grounded taskmaster, requiring more than just average work from her charge. Seri is being pushed out of her comfort zone by Fukami, and part of that is Fukami’s way of not quite crossing the line into inappropriate intimacy. As uncomfortable as she, is Seri is drawing and writing again, and feeling some kind of spark between them.
When Seri meets another of Fukami’s manga charges, things take a turn. Iwao warns Seri away from Fukami, claiming that the editor has a definite ranking in who gets time and attention. And we see that Iwao and Fukami’s relationship is more intimate than Seri and Fukami.
As the volume concludes, Seri goes to an awards ceremony to see Fukami and is confronted with the fact that he editor does this for everyone she is in charge of. She loves their work and would LOVE to see them reach number one in the magazine rankings! Seri meets the others as they begin Fukami’s “game,” but what will that entail?
As I said, this book is equal parts interesting and uncomfortable. Fukami’s femme fatale method works, and clearly she uses her personal charisma to motivate her writers, even possiblysetting them against one another to compete for her favor. It also can be read as Fukami does genuinely deeply, personally love manga and genuinely, deeply, personally wants every single one of her mangaka to reach for the number 1 ranking. Her behavior borders on (sometime crossing into) inappropriate, but her desire is not for the mangaka, but for their art.
It also could easily be that both these readings are true at the same time, depending on which perspective you take. I’m waiting to see how it pans out in the next volume. I’m interested enough to see if this is a deep psychological game by Fukami and where it leads, or if the game is simply “kick these do-nothing artists into high gear.”
Ratings:
Art – 6 I don’t care for the messy, wet look of Battan’s art, but YMMV
Story – 7 Could be good, could be bad, might be creepy, might not. Don’t know
Characters – 7 A bunch of soppy, slumpy manga artists and a femme fatale editor….what could go wrong?
Service – 4 Mild, but suggestive situations
Yuri – 4 There’s some projection happening and mopey crushing and an inappropriate kiss
Overall – 7
If you like Battan’s art, complicated and uncomfortable humans in complicated and uncomfortable situations or stories about stuck manga artists facing their own truths, give Fatale Game a try.
