Wednesday, 15 April 2009

Katsuhiro Otomo's Memories.


Somewhere around 1996, in Perth, I came across this book in one of the local bookstore which name slip my mind. The name Memories and Katsuhiro Otomo (大友克洋, Ōtomo Katsuhiro) caught my eyes. Published by Mandarin Paperbacks in 1994, which I have not heard of, it contains about 12 short stories collected within one volume, created way earlier than his more popular works. Each story range from 4 to 15 pages long. It contains Fireball, an early prequel whose theme would eventually serve as the basic groundwork and idea to Domu and Akira. It also contains Memories, which I first seen on anime format collection of 3 short stories of the same name, under the title Magnetic Rose. Some are horror stories, like the one about living sands that devour explorers and another about the survivor of a ship wreck in a heavily polluted sea and its consequences. Some are bone tickling funny take on fables and famous stories, like Aladdin and The Magic Lamp or even the Old Man and the Sea (very twisted). Prior to the beginning of each chapter, Otomo wrote the origin and the ideas behind the story.

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