Availability:
- JUMP the REVOLUTION 2005
- Busou Renkin #10
Original release date:
- September 30 2005
(Revolution)
- April 2006 (BR#10)
Format:
- one-shot
- 47 pages (in Revolution)
- 51 pages (in BR#10)
- 4 coloured pages
(Revolution-only)
Links:
(official; Japanese)
Related:
Embalming - DEAD BODY and BRIDE
Released only half a year after the end end of Busou Renkin in 2005, Embalming is a surprisingly dark story, drawing on the Frankenstein-myth, and starring, for a change, no heroes, but only anti-heroes.
With enough electrical energy, it is possible to create an artificialbeing from the body parts of the dead - since the method was devised by Victor Frankenstein, the monsters are called Frankensteins. Embalming I is set in a place where the lightning storms are famously so strong that it drew the attention of one insane Frankenstein creator, who creates his monsters from people he murdered, or from body parts that he brutally stole from them.
Marigold, a girl from a wealthy family, finds herself assaulted, too, her family killed and her own legs cut off and stolen. Dying, she sends a mercenary and assassin after the creator - a man only known as John Doe.
John is a Frankenstein himself, and apparantly one with unusual powers. His past, however, is a mystery. He asks for an unusual pay: body parts of a young, beautiful woman. His personal goal is to build himself a bride.
John is joined by a young girl named Little Rose, who is charged with supporting him by fixing any injuries he might receive in battle. Since John is a monster, this means sewing back any body parts that he might lose.
Rose also hides a more sinister self behind her innocent appearance...
Indeed, everyone of the three characters has a disturbing, dark aspect. The least darkest is still Marigold, but she's also the most passive one, and when it all comes down to it, we are stuck with John and Rose, two absolute anti-heroes, who both follow their own agendas and apparantly don't seem concerned about the moral of the story.
Nobuhiro Watsuki normally conveys nice, beautiful messages in his stories. His characters are usually heroes, who help each other and who have a great respect for the lives of others, even of their worst enemies. In Busou Renkin, which ended in early 2005, optimism, friendship and love prevailed above all - sentiments that seem to have no place at all in Embalming.
This is the only real complaint one might make about this story - always with the possibility of a serializaton in mind: it is too dark for a Jump series, isn't it?
Nevertheless, Embalming has a certain fascination, possibly because it hints at more secrets than it reveals. For the tankoubon release in Busou Renkin #10, the story was enhanced a little, and a short flashback was added for Rose, in which she is seen given the order to follow John by a mysterious secret cult.
Embalming seems to be merely scratching the surface of this new story, this new world that Watsuki has thought up.
All things considered, a sequel was almost to be expected, especially since he even mentions in the afterword of Busou Renkin that he wants to play with the Embalming-characters some more. Indeed, a year after the first oneshot, a sequel was released: Embalming II - DEAD BODY and LOVER [Review].
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August 17th, 2002 - 2007 by Kaeli (kaeli@gmx.de)
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