Thursday, October 12, 2017

“Le Portrait de Petite Cossette 1” & “Le Portrait de Petite Cossette 2”, written by Cossette House/Aniplex, illustrated by Asuka Katsura






194 pages, TokyoPop, ISBN-13: 978-1598165302 & 178 pages, TokyoPop, ISBN-13: 978-1598165319

Le Portrait de Petite Cossette by Katsura Asuka (as well as an outfit billing itself as Cossette House/Aniplex; I don’t know either) is the Manga adaptation of the famous Anime. The story centers around Eiri Kurahashi, an art school student with a job at a local antique store who develops an unexplainable obsession with a portrait of a Victorian-era girl named Cossette. The portrait has a strange history, as everyone who has owned it has been murdered in a bizarre fashion, and so when the new owner of the portrait nearly kills himself Eiri decides to get involved and figure out just what in the hell is going on…and that’s when Cossette begins speaking to him. No one else can hear or see her, and Eiri is not about to tell his friends (as is to be expected) that he is talking to the ghost of the girl in the portrait. You see, Cossette has a problem, and no one can help her but Eiri: she needs to gather her former possessions, each one of them cursed and causing their owners to go insane. But, how long can one deal with cursed objects and hysteria before descending into madness himself?

Though it is classified as a horror Manga, I think that it more of a gothic-style Manga with mystery, romantic and tragic elements (that’s as good a definition of gothic as can be). Le Portrait de Petite Cossette matches this very particular style very well, and it gives a very interesting perspective to its story. It is, above all, an aesthetic experience (almost…haunting, one could say): the plot is a bit typical, but it manages to differentiate itself through the take on the relationship between Eiri and Cossette (as well as Cossette’s dubious intentions concerning Eiri). The plot is memorable, and the ending is even better. The art took a bit of getting used to, but I liked it all the same. The way in which the characters and the backgrounds were drawn gave a very good atmosphere to the Manga, especially when it involved Cossette, her cursed possessions and the drawings of her; it all fit perfectly with the plot and the characters and pulled both through very well. The characters themselves fit with the style of art and are memorable as well as three-dimensional; rather than being cliché or overdramatic, they are realistic in both their personality and how they react to events (Eiri is the best example of this, and it is interesting to see how his perspective changes as the story progresses; particularly relating to Cossette herself). Overall Le Portrait de Petite Cossette was an enjoyable Manga to read (even if the plot isn’t the most original one out there, this doesn’t bring the overall story down).

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