Customer Reviews

Anne Freaks Volume 1 (v. 1)

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Yuri has a big problem. He just killed his mother. As he is burying her body underneath a bridge, a beautiful young woman happens upon the scene. When he tries to attack the girl she promptly knocks him out with a kick and a chop to the neck! The next thing he knows he wakes up in his house and Anna, the young woman he attacked is there too, saying that he is like her and that she has disposed of the body, all except her head! When one of his fellow students who saw him commit the crime ends up dead, Yuri realizes that Anna is a cold-blooded killer, but he still finds himself attracted to her and a certain kinship...because he is a killer too. Imagine Yuri's shock when she asks him to help her kill her father! The third main character of the series, Mitsuba, also comes into contact with Anna when she warns him that he is being followed. When he finds out that his sister and father have been killed by the same terrorist organization run by Anna's father, he joins his two fellow killers, even though Anna appears to be the only professional among them.

This is a promising start to an interesting series. While Anna seems a little unfathomable at the moment, Yuri and Mitsuba are a little easier to figure out. Both young men believe they have done something so sinful that there is no going back. They think that no normal person will accept their crimes so they join up with Anna, who sees murder as an acceptable activity. There are some very dark motivations working here, but there are moments of humor in the book, and even Anna begins to show some sympathetic traits. For example, when the three work together to save innocent children who are in danger of being killed by a bomb. You sense that Yuri's "murder" might not live up to the hype of the crime. This first volume also whets your appetite to find out exactly how these three are connected and what the terrorist organization really is and what its goals are.

I would also recommend the anime Noir.

I think it's only fair to say from the start that I am basically uneducated in the ways of manga. Though I am fond of graphic novels and I have some appreciation of various forms of Asian art, I have never taken the time (little though may be needed) to read something like Anne Freaks. So keep that in mind as you read this. (Outsiders opinions are often valuable, aren't they?)

Anyway, this story was suggested to me by a friend so I tried it. There are many things about it that I enjoyed. The art is beautiful and engaging. The three lead characters--a wimpy mother killer, a revenge killer and just a plain killer--are interesting. The story is fair. And, to be honest, I enjoyed getting used to reading "right to left, front to back."

On the other hand, there are some things that I felt were missing. The back story is rather vague, which makes the characters somewhat difficult to understand. The story is only fair and, of course, not yet complete. Most problematic, however, is the fine line this book draws between levels of readership; in particular, it feels like an adult story being reined in so it can still be sold to teens and pre-teens. Too bad. Sometimes its worth it to cross the line into adult stories and this book I think would have benefited from that.

Still, it's a fun way to spend an hour or so. And I'm interested enough to make an effort to read part 2 and find out what happens.

"Anne Freaks" is about several children of a religious cult that closely resembles Aum Shinrikyo, which was responsible for the Sarin gas attack on Tokyo in 1995. Anne was one of these children, whose parents were murdered by cult members. Now she is 16 and obsessed with taking revenge against the cult. As she meets several other surviving children of the cult, they band together to launch a series of murderous attacks on the cult.

Over its four volumes, the manga poses an ultimately insoluble riddle: what is justice? Is it Anne's quite understandable desire for revenge? Does justice dwell in the efforts by the police to destroy the cult, killing them all, including Anne and her friends? Or does justice reside in healing these young people and bringing them back into normal society as good citizens? Each vision is represented by a different main character, each obsessed by her own vision, each vision profoundly incompatible with the others.

I certainly won't tell you the ending, except to say that it is perhaps the only ending possible. The story is impeccably and convincingly told, as our sympathies are recruited to each vision and then refuted by another. The drawing is excellent, and Anne herself is very beautiful. Yet the story steadily moves to its own karmic ending, with the inevitability of a great tragedy. If you want simple shoot-'em-up stories with black-and-white morality, you will thoroughly dislike Anne Freaks. But if you are aware that morality and justice both are embedded in riddles and contradictions, then Anne Freaks is unforgettable. Highly recommended.