First question: Do you like stories that aren't focused on superheroes? Second question: Do you like stories that have a base to them? Something with a complex, evolving plot that leaves you squirming? Third question: Are you reading Kabuki? Because if your answer to the first two was yes, you had better be! I can't say enough about Kabuki. It's got drama, violence, revenge, horror, comedy...well, okay, not much, but you gotta admit the Mad Tea Party was amusing...and best of all, it's so surreal and yet so absolutely normal.
Some facts: Kabuki is told from the point of view of an insane, scarred, and amazing woman. You see what she sees, hears what she hears, and know what she knows. The storyline is one of violence, revenge, horror, and love. The art is...what to say? Fantastic, extrordinary, wonderful, beautiful, marvellous? Fill in with your own appropriate word! David Mack is absolutely stunning, and I say this from the point of view of a non-art person. The early issues...Fear the Reaper, Circle of Blood, and Masks of the Noh...are all in black and white. That makes for a very stark look and seems to strike more cords. Skin Deep and the newest series from Image are done in color, though the later stuff seems to be mostly watercolor. The art is integrated with the words to such a degree that sometimes, you have search for a meaning, and sometimes the words ARE the art. Trust me, to read an issue of Kabuki, you better have a good half hour to absorb and stare.
Basic plot: Kabuki is a government assassain in a clandestine organization called the Noh. She gets sent out to kill the gangsters and the corrupt politicians of Japan's streets. All straight and forward, right? Well, there's your violence (and it's really not for the squeamish). But then things get twisted, and your revenge pops up (Hey, dudes, beware...this is the entire Circle of Blood storyline laid out before you with all the major background! SPOILER).Kabuki was originally born from a woman. Duh, right? Uh uh. Here's the scoop. Kabuki's mother was named Tsukiko, "moon child." She was Ainu (which is, for the uninformed, a caucasian Japanese). The Ainu are not regarded very highly in Japanese culture; even throughout it's history, they've been driven away, until they now mostly live in Hokkaido (the northernmost Japanese island). Well, during WWII when Tsukiko was less than ten years old, she was kidnapped from her farm by Japanese soldiers. She was shipped as military supplies (!!) to a base, where she was expected to perform certain duties for the good of her country. However, the general there, known as General Sun because he fought for the glory of Japan, did not allow Tsukiko and the other comfort women to be molested. Instead, he ordered them to perform ancient Kabuki dramas. Now, here's the catch and a quick background: Kabuki is a from of theatre developed near Kyoto by a priestess. Throughout it's history, women were the main characters and players. However, they were banned (I don't remember when) to promote public morality because, offstage, they were usually prostitutes. So the men, the soldiers, come to regard the comfort women as prostitutes...They were not true Japanese, but rather Ainu, Korean and Burmese girls.
General Sun came to love Tsukiko. He had a son, though, a truly vicious and cruel young man who felt that Tsukiko was nothing better than a slave and a dog. This son, Ryuchi Kai, hated Tsukiko because his father loved her. He attempted to molest her one day, and the General stopped him before he go far enough...this caused the two to become bitter enemies.When WWII ends, Tsukiko is displaced. She cannot return to her home. The General asks her to marry him, and she accepts. However, the two cannot fully escape their pasts. The General has grown in the government to such a position that his very existance is a closely kept secret. His son Kai grows in the opposite direction; he has become a very strong prescence in the underworld and his existance is anything BUT a secret. Kai soon learns of his plans to wed Tsukiko, and his anger is boundless. How can his father, a good, upstanding, honorable Japanese man marry an Ainu dog? He accosts Tsukiko at the temple the night before her wedding. By the time she is found the next day, she is near death. And pregnant.
When Tsukiko gives birth to a girl, she dies. The girl, who is named Ukiko, or girl of the rain, feels that her mother's spirit has fled into her body. Ukiko is raised by the General, who though he never consumated with Tsukiko, still feels responsible for the child. It is many years before Kai learns of Ukiko's birth (He, like a good little daddy, was off killing, murdering, and amassing a fortune). When he discovers her, he is furious! To him, she is worse than Ainu, worse than Japanese...she is a mixture of two races that should never be mixed. Like her mother before her, Ukiko is accosted by Kai when she is eight. He carves the three kanji for Kabuki into her face...'song,' 'dance,' and 'action'. He leaves her for dead. She dies.The finest hospitals and doctors bring her back, but she is scarred and can no longer act like a child. She belives that she is the reincarnated spirit of Tsukiko, like that of a Kabuki drama, and that she must get revenge for her mothers death. The General sends her to the finest of schools and she learns to kill. Eventually, she is graduated, to take a place in the Noh, the General's secret assasain group, with the name of Kabuki. (And I won't spoil the rest of the story...mostly because, that's where it gets surreal, and that's where the great storylines kick back in. And I'm also tired of typing!).
For now, let's just say that Kabuki sends some people to keep her mother company. Alot of them (including Kai). And... then she dies (again). Only, they can't let her die now, can they? Uh uh. So what do they do? Send her right back to the land of the living to pluck her brain and see what psycho stuff they can dig up. A group called Control Corps gets their hands on her. Control Corps is another government agency that regulates and collects rogue agents to reprogram and reassign them. The Doctor probes Kabuki's mind as Kabuki probes herself, to discover who she really is...her mother? Herself? The incarnation of Kabuki, assasain, or Ukiko, little girl?The trilogy story of Skin Deep opens with the Noh agents Siamese fighting for their lives. At their feet lies a dead girl with a Noh tattoo. They say she is Kabuki, but the dead girl's face is gone and they can't positively identify her. The other rogue agents in the asylum begin to attack them, and one of Siamese is hit. Her sister drags her away, they set up a bomb, and in a couple seconds everything blows up.
Rewind. Kabuki is lying on a bed. It's hours, days, minutes before the asylum is blown up. Kabuki discovers that she's in a room surrounded by pictures of friends, a home, and recent pictures of her mother. It takes her no time at all to see that these things are merely ficticious...she's never hugged her mother, and she's never had friends. She realizes that "they"...whoever they are...are trying to disorient her. She dresses, the mysterious "they" providing her with clothes, and is taken to see the Doctor. The Doctor tries to be Kabuki's friend. She tells her that she gave her own blood to save Kabuki's life. She says that she's there to help. In fact, she tries every psychoanalytical trick that she can to get Kabuki to tell her where she comes from. Kabuki won't talk. She tells the Doctor to bring her the mask, the one she wore when she was with the Noh, and then they'd talk.Control Corps arn't happy with Kabuki. They lock her back into her room, which is bare now, and leave her there. She doesn't talk. Then they start to break her mind...they drug her and then change the color of her room. They dress her differently. They send people to the door to ask her questions about the Noh and what she did there. They try to create doubt and fear in her mind. Kabuki discovers what they're doing eventually, and they don't come in anymore (after kicking the crap out of one of the guards, I wouldn't go near her either!). When the guards stop coming, she gets messages folded into paper squares from Akemi ( note this, those who are reading Kabuki now and just discovered who Akemi is). As the story progresses (and no, I won't tell you everything that happens) Akemi and Kabuki become friends through Akemi's origami designs. Akemi used to be a Noh operative, the original Tigerlily, until she went rogue and was replaced. Kabuki is at first afraid of her because she used to be Noh, but eventually lost her fear and became fierce friends with Akemi. Akemi and Kabuki's adventure continues after Skin Deep in the new Image series. We finally meet Akemi for the first time in issue #1, and the girls begin their escape that same issue.
Trust me, Kabuki is one comic you want to get your hands on. This new Skin Deep HC was part of a re-release from Image. The Circle of Blood (the first six stories in the Kaubki series) HC was released around a month ago, copies may still be found. Rating is 10 out of 10, highly recommended!! RIYL: Vertigo."I end up playing solitaire with a toilet tissue deck of fity two cards."
E-mail the reviewer Back To HomeAnd hey, while you're here, why not check out Jeanne's Kabuki website?
Vol. 2, Issue #18
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