This isn’t much of a post; this manga just sounds cool as Hell:
Panorama is an adaptation of a novella by Japanese detective fiction godfather, Edogawa Rampo. The story takes place at the end of the Taisho era, and follows an unsuccessful science fiction author with an uncanny resemblance to a former classmate/son of a rich industrialist family. When the industrialist’s son dies, the author fakes his own death, digs up and hides the other man’s body, then washes himself up starving on a beach in a town where the dead man’s family lives. After some more intrigue and scheming, he proceeds to take redirect all of their money to build a mysterious pleasure palace island, and live like a sensual weirdo king. Crazy and amazing stuff!
You had me at “Edogawa Rampo”. Oh, and “sensual weirdo king”.
Gotta wait until 2010 though. Oh well.
Sure, it sounds funky, but when the heck was the Taisho era? Is that the current emperor’s postmortem name? Let’s see, Showa, somebody, Meiji… man, it’s been a while since Modern Japanese History class.
Wouldn’t it have been easier to say “in the near future?” Do we have to play the “epoch” card? Sorry that I’m getting hung up on this.
Hi, this is Ryan from Same Hat (and the editor of this manga)
I’m psyched to hear that you guys are into this book. I’ll be posting some goodies along the way about the process on Same Hat, with lots of news next Winter/Spring as the release gets close.
@Albigensia: The Taisho era is the short period between Meiji and Showa, when a lot of modernization (and militarization) of Japan took place (1912-1926). That cultural background and change in the country is an interesting subtext for the weirdness and paranoia of the story… it’d be like saying that a story of pre-Nazi, post-WWI Germany took place during the “waning days of the Weimar Republic”, if that makes sense
Thanks and hope you guys enjoy Panorama Island in the Spring!
Cool, thanks for posting! We’ll definitely keep an eye out for it.