Glass Wings [Paperback]

Misuzu Asaoka (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2006

Fragile souls and tragic fates collide in these haunting, gothic stories about the enduring power of love...In this collection, a boy struggles with a dreaded affliction that comes between him and his true love; an orphan has the power to take on the sickness of others; a disfigured boy confronts the inner conflict between his need to survive and his desire to love.In an uncompromising blend of magic and realism, Glass Wings reveals love's capacity to overcome all obstacles and replenish the human spirit in the direst of times.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–This collection of stories all touching on the power of love has promise but never really takes off. The settings and backgrounds of the stories are ignored in favor of mere presentation of characters, ornamentally drawn with ribbons and frills. In the title piece, readers meet a tiny waif who has just attempted suicide. Her ethereal soul mate, Ruri, promises devotion, despite being infected with Death Blood–a plot mention that is meant to add danger but only comes up once in a while. A sorceress tries to steal Ruri away, and later a young soldier seeking vengeance for his dead sister tries to murder them. Although readers are expected to root for the young lovers because–apparently–they are so mangarific, the other two characters have far more emotionally connecting backstories. Sadly, the final author's note tells of an intriguing plotline involving the sorceress that is never even approached. The remaining pieces continue the strange theme of individuals falling for people who resemble their dead lovers, and then wanting to kill them. In general the artwork is overdone with each figure too stylized and each article of clothing bejeweled to the max. Scenery, never manga's strong suit, appears only as an afterthought, to the detriment of the story's pacing.–John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
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Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: TokyoPop (February 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159816158X
• ISBN-13: 978-1598161588
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,162,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE AND TRAGEDY, March 6, 2006

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Glass Wings (Paperback)

Glass Wings presents three gothic, haunting tales of forbidden or unrequited love, rendered with beautiful artistry by Misuzu Asaoka. The three stories are almost Shakespearian in their tragic elements. In the first story, Hagane and Ruriha are brother and sister and both born with the `deathblood' which can infect and inflame all who come in contact with it. They are prisoners of a woman named Tsubaki, who loves Hagane and claims to have given birth to the pair, although it seems likely that birth may be in a sort of vampiric sort of manner as opposed to literally giving birth to the pair. The brother and sister merely want to live their life together and free from torment but Tsubaki says she will never let them go.

In Firefly we meet Yuinne, who comes from a race of ghoul-like creatures that the nearby villagers refer to as freaks. They need to live on the blood and bodies of dead bodies in order to survive. When Yuinne runs away, trying to escape this horrific life, he is taken in by a young village girl named Mia who is unaware that he is a freak which soon puts the pair into conflict with the rest of the village who wants to kill Yuinne as Mia tries to help him. Finally in Jion Princess we meet a sickly young princess named Yura whose condition seems to be beyond a cure, that is until an orphan girl named Soyogi, who resembles Yura finds that she has empathetic powers to take all of Yura's ills and sicknesses into her body so that Yura will live, but does Yura show Soyogi any gratitude?

As the titles suggests, Glass Wings explores the fragility of love and relationships and the often strange partnerships that come about in life, no matter how different people can be. Asaoka's art is very beautiful, particularly in the opening story. Genuine sympathy is garnered for these sad siblings who only want to live with each other without asking anything of the rest of the world. This was truly a touching story.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars nonsensical elegance, March 5, 2006

By 

tami "pinkboxcutter" (chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glass Wings (Paperback)

There are three stories in this single-book anthology. The first, and longest, is about two pretty teenagers whose diseased blood kills on contact. Thier greatest dreams are to live together and alone, happily in love and isolated from any people they could kill. To accomplish this, they ran away from a seductive woman who may or may not be thier mother, and may or may not want the boy to be her lover, and speaks of posessing him while torturing his sister and/or girlfriend. But they return to her, and go back to thier intial routine of being seduced and tortured until they aren't anymore. In the next story, a boy is being chased by someone who wants him to give in to his curse as a corpse eater. A girl is kind to him, but he ends up alone and devastated and prodded by his pursuers anyways. Lastly, an orphan is able to siphon disease off of a princess whom she loves-despite said princess thinking her savior a pile of dirt and letting her know it with constant abuse. They come to some kind of understanding in the end, featuring two pages worth of the princess being somewhat less nasty to the orphan.

Make sense? Yeah, I didn't get it either.

That's the gist of "Glass Wings", overall darkly presented and a big jumble of confusion. The entire time I was trying to figure out what-if any-point each story really had. I suppose that the messages were simple enough, but it was really all obscured by flurries of moments attempting to be deep and poignant- it wasn't all unsucessful, but the overall feeling was hazy. The coherency simply wasn't there-the moment of clarity that could give true empathy for the characters never appeared. This was especially a problem in the first story, because it was the longest. The other two, being short, could at least get away with a skeptical "Oh. I see." quality. They didn't have the oppurtunity to mix themselves up too badly. But in the first story, tragedies and words seem to blur into each other until they're as distracting as the masses of curls and frills themselves.

The artwork is the strength of this book-the girls are all dressed in the prettiest lolita outfits imaginable and have elaborate hairstyles, frills and ringlets galore.The boys are perfect eyecandy with thier stylish leather and belts. They're all incredibly cute, even if a bit too much so.(eyes taking up 90% of a girl's face is stretching it, even for anime.) But it might actually contribute to the problem of the story-it's hard enough to try to piece together the plots without being ovewhelmed with dense panels crammed with the greatest possible amount of ribbons. The mangaka comments that she spent too much time on the clothes and not the faces-but really, she spent too much time on the drawing and not on the planning. If you plan on getting Glass Wings, be aware that you're doing it for the sheer visual beauty of it, not for the stories. They got stuck in thier own potential and never became anything incredible.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Jumble of Confusion, August 6, 2007

By 

Emily Clark "UnicornEmily" (Hong Kong, China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Glass Wings (Paperback)

Occasionally, one runs across a book that is haunting, lyrical, artistically beautiful, and which inspires a great deal of thought long after finishing the ending. Often, these books are labeled "haunting" or "gothic," as this book was.

Too bad it didn't prove to be one of them.

All three "stories" are a big jumble of confusion, containing very little coherent plot, a great deal of gratuitous violence for no discernable reason, and no character development to speak of. The art is decent, but nothing particularly original -- it reminds me of Arina Tanemura's style, but with less development and visual interest.

This book might appeal to some people. It tries to be creepy and tragic and haunting, and perhaps it does succeed in being that way for some. But it failed utterly with me; I found myself feeling only disgust at the amount of seemingly pointless gore, annoyance at the story's lack of anything resembling original plot, and irritation at its failing to live up to the tone it so clearly was trying to achieve.

I was hoping to discover something in this book that was reminescent of Vampire Princess Miyu or Alichino or even Bizenghast -- but instead, I found nothing more than a mess.

Don't buy this book.