"im in a hurry to live."
kurayami dance
illustrated by takeya syuji
written by goichi suda
genres: mystery, psychological
demographic: seinen
chapter count: 16
released: 2015
synopsis: kurayami dance is a manga based on the original draft for shadows of the damned, which was a loose adaptation of kafka's the castle.
wataru, a man who went 300 km/h on a motorcycle. due to the injuries he sustained, he spent three years in the hospital. when wataru wakes up, he sees a completely changed hometown and a newly created iron empire. he then receives an invitation from the empire... a mysterious journey begins!
illustrated by takeya syuji
written by goichi suda
genres: mystery, psychological
demographic: seinen
chapter count: 16
released: 2015
synopsis: kurayami dance is a manga based on the original draft for shadows of the damned, which was a loose adaptation of kafka's the castle.
wataru, a man who went 300 km/h on a motorcycle. due to the injuries he sustained, he spent three years in the hospital. when wataru wakes up, he sees a completely changed hometown and a newly created iron empire. he then receives an invitation from the empire... a mysterious journey begins!
overall feelings: most likely my favorite manga ever
"[shadows of the damned] became a completely different game. that was a bit disappointing. i think suda was unable to create the scenario he'd originally had in his head, and he rewrote the scenario several times. i think his heart was broken. he's such a unique creator, so it seems to me that he was not quite comfortable with making this game."
— shinji mikami
its a little difficult for me to talk about a manga so dearly beloved to me without bursting into a seemingly disconnected string of thoughts. a countless amount of analyses ive been letting marinate and simmer for way too long to the point where, i feel like leaving it in the oven for so long makes me even more pressured to make sure that whatever i put out isn't half-baked.
kurayami dance deeply resonates with me because its goichi suda at his absolutely most personal, one that recognizes and overcomes the perspectives and hardships he's held as a son and auteur respectively. in such a grueling, oppressive industry as
video games, its no surprise that suda being the creative that he is has faced his own fair share of setbacks and restraints over the decades he's been putting out work, but it was incredibly predominantly known during his time with electronic arts. for some context,
kurayami dance as a manga is an amalgamation of drafts that suda wrote for a game that would later be known as 'shadows of the damned'. due to a lot of executive meddling that suda and mikami faced during the development of it, EA ended up rejecting the drafts that
suda would later weave together to become kurayami dance. naturally, it's only understandable why suda felt so heartbroken by its finished product-- after all, it was intended to be a striking introspection across suda's career as well as his own personal life, which
he has spoken very little of.
of course, this isn't to say that suda doesn't implement very personal elements of himself in his writing-- after all, the silver case, grasshopper manufacture's debut adventure game visual novel, has the second case pretty blatantly depict suda's own childhood. a boy named koichi moving into the 24th ward and facing bullying and alienation, while living alone with his mother and distant from his absent father is pretty 1:1 with suda's own experiences living in nagano. in fact, this matriarchal depiction of families would creep up plenty of times across the work in his career pre-kurayami dance-- a predominance of mothers with fathers either being dead or absent.
it goes without saying kurayami dance addresses both of these pretty straightforwardly-- wataru's mother, while not present at all for a majority of the manga, still plays an important role by sending homecooked meals for wataru whenever she could. it elaborates on this further a little later, when wataru reveals that he had a memory resurface of his childhood when his mother tried doing a joint-suicide with wataru as a result of a marriage dispute. conversely, wataru's father figure, unmehara, would instead be depicted to be the boss of the funeral parlor that wataru works under. however, umehara would in fact be the antagonistic figure that orchestrates a majority of the events throughout the story, being the one to send wataru on his road trip across the kurogane kingdom.
it's interesting because both wataru's mother and umehara would both have conflicting sets of influence that wataru would unknowingly navigate between. at some point in the prologue, wataru dreams of going on a road trip with his best friend being on route 66, referencing the novel 'the grapes of wrath'. it was in that book that it was dubbed 'mother road' and was depicted thematically to represent escape, loss, and a new beginning, in which these three in particular being the storytelling structure of kurayami dance both literally and metanarratively.
of course, this isn't to say that suda doesn't implement very personal elements of himself in his writing-- after all, the silver case, grasshopper manufacture's debut adventure game visual novel, has the second case pretty blatantly depict suda's own childhood. a boy named koichi moving into the 24th ward and facing bullying and alienation, while living alone with his mother and distant from his absent father is pretty 1:1 with suda's own experiences living in nagano. in fact, this matriarchal depiction of families would creep up plenty of times across the work in his career pre-kurayami dance-- a predominance of mothers with fathers either being dead or absent.
it goes without saying kurayami dance addresses both of these pretty straightforwardly-- wataru's mother, while not present at all for a majority of the manga, still plays an important role by sending homecooked meals for wataru whenever she could. it elaborates on this further a little later, when wataru reveals that he had a memory resurface of his childhood when his mother tried doing a joint-suicide with wataru as a result of a marriage dispute. conversely, wataru's father figure, unmehara, would instead be depicted to be the boss of the funeral parlor that wataru works under. however, umehara would in fact be the antagonistic figure that orchestrates a majority of the events throughout the story, being the one to send wataru on his road trip across the kurogane kingdom.
it's interesting because both wataru's mother and umehara would both have conflicting sets of influence that wataru would unknowingly navigate between. at some point in the prologue, wataru dreams of going on a road trip with his best friend being on route 66, referencing the novel 'the grapes of wrath'. it was in that book that it was dubbed 'mother road' and was depicted thematically to represent escape, loss, and a new beginning, in which these three in particular being the storytelling structure of kurayami dance both literally and metanarratively.
to me, the autobiographical structure of kurayami dance represents suda himself interpreting how sees his own parents, and finding closure in his past with his family, present or still here. one of the most powerful gestures that suda does in kurayami dance would be when
kento, wataru's best friend, confronts umehara in an attempt to figure out why he betrayed him. uemhara ends up withholding his reasoning, and kento hands over a pistol that would turn out to be a toy gun, revealing he was originally planning on killing him with it
if he answered.
i felt like it was suda himself realizing that he won't ever know why his father was never present for his life, and that the reason why doesn't matter to him. at the end, like umehara sending wataru on the trip, suda's father being absent from his life would end up having him realize how much he loved his mother, and led him on his own mother road. a road that represents suda's own life across his careers as an undertaker, and eventually, a game director.
i felt like it was suda himself realizing that he won't ever know why his father was never present for his life, and that the reason why doesn't matter to him. at the end, like umehara sending wataru on the trip, suda's father being absent from his life would end up having him realize how much he loved his mother, and led him on his own mother road. a road that represents suda's own life across his careers as an undertaker, and eventually, a game director.
the addition of the character g. also sort of ties into this, which represents shadows of the damned and also the individual failed drafts the kurayami dance became. its sort of interesting because g. himself is even depicted in an almost mother-like manner from his
introduction, visually being incredibly feminine while also cooking homecooked meals and taking care of wataru when they met again later on. it feels like it implies that these first few drafts also had this motherhood element, and seeing how these incarnations of
the story never came into fruition, it sort of feels like the betrayal that g. does toward wataru represents suda's own dissatisfaction with it being unable to be what he wanted it to.
however it may be, in the quest of suda's own pursuits as a game director, there may be times
however it may be, in the quest of suda's own pursuits as a game director, there may be times
where his own work won't fully be a reflection of how he envisioned. challia (and by extension, wataru) killing g. feels like suda himself killing his most recent past-- an acceptance that while shadows of the damned may not have come out the way he wanted it to, he was still able to make something wonderful out of it with kurayami dance.
kurayami dance represents a dance in the dark. a dance that reveals itself as the shape of our hearts. there's some people who are made to dance that can't do anything else. and wataru had to find the will to dance within himself, not to the tune of someone else's drum. he had to kill the life. to kill the past. but he didn't kill the past in a conventional way that many of the other protagonists of suda's work has. and that's what is still incredibly profound to me.
the ending is still uncertain to me. i guess, the most certain interpretation i could really muster for it is that the food that wataru eats represents support, and in this case, its his mother's own support to him being a game director and all. suda may end up being distant sometimes (hence why both wataru and his mother disappear from each other's perception), but, he still ends up coming back to her always. because he loves her.
good night, wataru. i'll love you always
the ending is still uncertain to me. i guess, the most certain interpretation i could really muster for it is that the food that wataru eats represents support, and in this case, its his mother's own support to him being a game director and all. suda may end up being distant sometimes (hence why both wataru and his mother disappear from each other's perception), but, he still ends up coming back to her always. because he loves her.
good night, wataru. i'll love you always
