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Reviewed by Shannon Fay There are two main things that make The Drifting Classroom disturbing. One, it features children in horrible, painful and traumatic situations, and two, that it was originally aimed at kids around the same age as the characters. More than thirty years after its original publication, Viz is now publishing it with a hefty ‘mature’ rating on the back and shrinkwrapping around the book. And maybe it just shows how different things are between Japan and North America, but personally the mature rating seems more appropriate. That doesn’t mean I don’t like The Drifting Classroom, I love it, but I wouldn't lend it to my 10-year-old brother to read. The Drifting Classroom starts out like a slice-of-life drama about a sixth grader named Sho. Sho narrates the series as if he’s looking back on the situation from some point in the future, talking about things with a mature note of regret. Even before the series takes a turn for serious horror, Sho’s narration gives even the mundane, opening act an eerie feeling. Things don’t get really weird until later at school when some kind of explosion shakes the school to its foundations. At first the kids and teachers think it’s just an earthquake, but when they look out the window they see that everything past the school grounds has become an alien wasteland. Meanwhile, back in the ‘real world’, Sho’s school has completely disappeared, leaving behind a huge carter and no explanation of what’s happened. Left behind to try and figure out what’s going on is Sho’s mother and his best friend Shinichi, who wasn’t at school because he ran home to get lunch money. The manga doesn’t linger to long in the real world, popping in only occasionally to show the aftermath of the school’s disappearance At first I thought the manga would have been better if we didn’t see the what was going on in our world, as we would have been in the same position as Sho in not knowing whether anyone else outside of the school was still alive. But now I’ve come to appreciate the real world parts of the series. Instead of answering questions, these parts just raise new ones. Also, The Drifting Classroom is a pretty bleak manga considering its elementary school cast. The real world segments give a sense of hope that the kids might be able to get back after all. The focus of the story is on Sho’s sixth grade class and how they react in a totally unfamiliar situation. I found the kids reactions pretty realistic. They’re terrified but for they keep their cool and act rationally. Of course, they’re not perfect. One of the other classes mutinies against their teacher, and individual students panic and do stupid things. But for the most part, the kids seem to be taking it better than the teachers, who are either crazy or ineffectual. If there’s something that bothers me about The Drifting Classroom, it’s how quickly and how severely some of the adults loose their marbles. It’s a horrible situation to be sure, but for it to turn a kindly teacher into a killing machine seems like a bit of a stretch. The Drifting Classroom is over thirty years old, and the art reflects it. I’ve heard others criticize Kazuo Umezu’s art for being kind of stiff, but I don’t mind it. The manga-ka does a great job building suspense. Despite the high body count the art is not extremely graphic, but it doesn’t have to be. A panel of a grown-man killing a group of sixth graders with a butcher’s knife doesn’t need buckets of blood or entrails to be disturbing; it's frightening enough as it is. Kazuo Umezo has a flair for the dramatic that will could be seen as cheesy, but I think it’s effective. In volume one, he uses 14 splash pages, often one right after another. It creates an interesting effect. By volume two the number of splash pages trails off, which is too bad because I think they’re something that sets The Drifting Classroom apart. The series kind of reminds me of Lost, in that it is about a group of people working together in a strange and deadly situation. There are also plenty of mysteries and questions: Where are Sho and his schoolmates? How did they get there? How will they get back home? And what will they have to do to survive until then? Like Lost, each answer only brings up more questions. There’s a reason why this is considered a classic horror manga. I’m glad Viz is publishing it in English (with a mature rating) though I wish they had done a better job with the covers. Both of them feature gaping schoolchildren and weird coloring. I know it must be a hard series to sum up in one cover image, but surely Viz can do better than that. Volume one does include a bio on Umezu and his information about his other works, which is a nice inclusion. Think you could have written a better review of Drifting Classroom v1-2? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
3 February 2010
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