Dearest readers! I do not know how, but time seems to have gotten away from me and what started as a few weeks became months! I am terribly sorry and will try to be a better blogger. To come back from my time away I thought I would do something short and whimsical. One of my all time favorite mangas, Wish.
For those who do not know mangas are graphic novels. Similar to comic books, but imagine a whole novel in that format. People tend to think of mangas coming from Japan, but they can come from all over. Mangas are often very long, but Wish is refreshing in that it is only four volumes.
Warning! Spoilers ahead.
The story starts out as a simple one, but deepens as it goes on. Shuichiro is heading home from work late one night and spots Kohaku trapped in a tree. He saves her, and by angel law Kohaku must grant his wish. Unfortunately Shuichiro has no wish, so Kohaku begins living with him hoping that in time he will need divine help.
If you have not already guessed it, this story is a love story. As time progresses the romance between Kohaku and Shuichiro, angel and human, begins to grow. There is also a secondary romance with Hisui and Kokuyo. The high angel and demon prince met one day and fell in love. Romance between angels and demons is illegal, especially since the two are high up politically. So the two run away to Earth, abandoning both of their duties to be with each other. Kohaku was originally sent to Earth to find Hisui, so the angel and demon also begin to live with Shuichiro.
The story is sweet and I enjoy watching the romance between the two grow. There is a little subplot involving Shuichiro's father and mother. You find out that his mother was the spirit of a wisteria tree who disappeared when she returned back to the form of a tree. This is only one of the mysterious things about Shuichiro. The demons enjoy the smell of him and he looks alarmingly like Kokuyo, the demon prince. Kokuyo has a suspicion about him, but every time he tries to say something about it the people he's talking to walk away. It happens too often to be coincidental, and when he has Koryu go to hell to steal a special book to confirm his suspicion you start to wonder just who is the mysterious Shuichiro. Adding in the fact that he was adopted only adds to the mystery.
One point in the story that shook me was when the angels finally came to find Kohaku who had been missing from heaven. Kahaku wanted to stay but Shuichiro, not wanting to cause her trouble, told her to go; that he'd never have a wish for her. This broke Kohaku's heart, and when she left Shuichiro was startled to see tears in her eyes. Kohaku later decided to break God's law for the first time and traveled to earth on her own. Good, innocent Kohaku breaking the law was a huge shock. No one could believe it within her character to do something like that. It made her desire to be with him that much stronger.
As I read the story I thought that Shuichiro was a lost demon prince and that Kohaku was following in Hisui's footsteps. The truth was even more startling. It turns out that Shuichiro was near death. This was why the demons loved his smell since they eat souls and could smell that his soul was about to leave his body. The book Kokuyo had stolen was an account of those who soon would die, and he couldn't tell anyone this because God wanted to spare Kohaku's feelings. Shuichiro's death was rather ironic since he finally had come up with his wish, which was to have Kohaku stay always with him. Despite all this the story ends happily. Hisui is cast out of heaven allowing her to live guilt free with Kokuyo, and Kohaku is stripped temporarily of her powers and so that she may be put to sleep till Shuichiro is reincarnated and they can be together.
Personally I thought the ending was bitter sweet. I was happy that everyone ended up happy, but the reborn Shuichiro was not the same Shuichiro, even if he had the same soul. I would have been happier if Shuichiro had indeed been a lost demon prince, though I loved how the story surprised me at the very end.
The story talked about some interesting things. One of them was that angels can only consume milk. This does not really come up much in the story but is still interesting. Another was that demons and angels have no gender. The author mentions this pretty early on in the first novel. The book doesn't out right say it, but the author has it in a little note for the reader. For simplicity the author refers to angels as females and demons as males. Again this is never really mentioned but it is still interesting.
What I think is the most interesting tidbit is that the book talks about the string of fate. An invisible string that connects two people entwining around their finger. This string affects people who are meant to find one another and have an important story. The string ensures that no matter how far apart they may be that the two people always end up finding one another. The story of these two people tied by fate does not always have to be a romance, though in this story it is. I liked the idea of this and thought it a nice bit of culture to learn.
Over all the Wish manga series was a story I greatly enjoyed. I have read it several times and found the love story to be quite charming. I suggest that lovers of romance give this manga a try, even if they are not usually a fan of mangas. I give this story a 7.3 out of 10.
Sources:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/62/Wish_cover.jpg
http://www.faena.com/aleph/articles/the-legend-of-the-red-string-of-japan/
