Review: Opus by Satoshi Kon

 

Satoshi Kon is perhaps the most famous anime auteur director in the West other than Hayao Miyazaki. His credits include Perfect Blue, Paprika, and Paranoia Agent among others. Kon had a talent for crafting psychological thrillers that crossed cultural barriers and transcended anime fandom into wider recognition. He died in 2010 of pancreatic cancer. His illness progressed rapidly and he chose not to make it public. It came as a shock to the film and animation world. He was only 46, and still had much of his career ahead of him. 

Kon is primarily known for his work in anime, but before he was a director he was an equally skilled mangaka. He worked on several series, one of which was Opus, an unfinished series that would foreshadow elements of his future work. Dark Horse released the collected chapters in English as an Omnibus in 2014, unfortunately, I slept on it for quite a while. 

Now, 10 years after its release in English I've finally sat down to read it. Immediately, I was struck by Kon's style. I've watched most of his anime, but this is the first time I've read one of his manga. I was not surprised at all to find out that he was heavily influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo (of Akira fame), and in fact, worked as Otomo's assistant. 

The resemblance is not subtle

Knowing that Kon was a fan of Akira adds an extra layer of humor to Opus. Opus is the story of a mangaka, Chikara Nagai, who has finally arrived at the end of a successful series. A series that just so happens to be about a battle between warring psychics in a cyberpunk cityscape. He has just penned the ending and showed an early draft to his editor. The editor muses that the ending fits, but is bittersweet. Nagai has chosen to have his hero and villain destroy each other in a climactic battle. 

All that remains is for Nagai to put the finishing touches on the final chapter, when Nagai's hero, Lin, decides that he doesn't care for this ending. He crawls out of the comic and steals the final page. Then Nagai is sucked into the world of his own manga. 

Nagai finds himself in the awkward position of a God who has to explain to his creation why he allows bad things to happen to good people. 

I won't spoil the twist, but you don't have to be a galaxy-brained podcast host to guess where this story is going. This isn't my first time encountering a metanarrative that wonders if God is just a cosmic author and we are all just characters. Still, Kon does a wonderful job of exploring the topic. There is something very compelling about forcing a writer to justify inflicting the worst miseries upon his creation just to keep the story dramatic and interesting. 

Kon crafts a narrative that we relate to both as creators and creations. He also asks us to ponder why we want to read stories about miserable characters in dramatic circumstances. What do we gain by creating fictional worlds filled with violence and trauma? Could you be convinced to give your characters a happy ending simply because you realized they were capable of real suffering? What makes suffering real? If you were a character in a story, could you ever forgive your creator? 

This is well-tread territory in philosophy and storytelling, and it could come off as very "I'm 14 and this is deep" of Kon. He saves the story from wandering too far into the douche philosophy corner by maintaining a sense of humor throughout most of the book. That said, there are a few moments where it wanders into unexpectedly heavy territory and some content warnings are in order. Violence Against Children and Sexual Assault are themes that come into play. Interestingly, Kon even has his mangaka wonder if maybe this was over the line when he's forced to really reckon with what he's created.

As I said before, Opus is an unfinished manga. The magazine it ran in collapsed toward the end of the series' run. Kon had already moved on to directing and Opus was put on Hiatus. There is something hauntingly serendipitous about the manga's cancellation. Its final chapter is only published in the collected volume. It was found among Kon's papers after his death. It is unfinished, but even that works in its favor. Both the final chapter and the circumstances of its eventual addition to the story cap off the themes Kon was playing with in a way that couldn't have been achieved if Opus had been allowed a proper ending.

Opus isn't the greatest or most original manga I've ever read, but what is average for Satoshi Kon is head and shoulders above the best of many others. I can't promise it stands out amongst the Satoshi Kon classics, but I certainly think it's worth a read.