While this is, evidently, an adaptation of an adventure novel of the same name by Yumemakura Baku, it is a match made in heaven, as it reads like pure Taniguchi. In many respects this is an ideal follow-up to Quest for the Missing Girl. Summit of the Gods is an exploration into the mechanics of masculinity, male-bonding, identity formation and the competitive instinct in the guise of a mountain climbing epic. It is also an artistic tour de force as Taniguchi pulls out all the stops and goes for page after page of stunning art that deftly parallels the urban environs of Tokyo, wherein the skeins of the story unwind and the haunting mountain peaks that are the story's central focus. Readers are drawn into this work through a fairly sophisticated use of narrative bracketing technique – somewhat reminiscent of Joseph Conrad – that quite successfully contextualizes these ruggedly manly atavistic adventures in the world of men doing business in modern Japan. The story starts off with a photographer in Nepal having just finished covering a failed attempt at scaling Mt. Everest. His nagging feelings of let down lead him to linger longer in Kathmandu wherein he stumbles into the tale that makes up Summit of the Gods and which we are subtly led to see from his point of view. It is a story that presents many of the tropes we associate with the superhero genre of comics here in the USA – a rugged, musclebound, loner driven by the inner demons of having his parents die tragically while he was still a child to become obsessed with achievement to the point of alienating his peers yet through his achievements attracting the adulation of a teen sidekick who had a similarly tragic loss of his parents (beginning to sound familiar?) – yet with a spectacularly greater degree of realism than what we associate with American superhero comics. This is a story that is set in the real world and, while there is an element of escapism present in the mountain climbing theme, the material is entirely devoid of the fantastic fantasies that are essential to superheroes by their very nature, yet it nevertheless manages to provide the same quintessential frisson-filled catharsis. This makes it an ideal comics work for those long-suffering comics fans who pine for that long-ago thrill that they once enjoyed in the pages of superhero comics but that is now denied them by the reality principle that has been imposed upon them as responsible adults. Taniguchi is without peer in his ability to create a sense of place and in setting the pace, and this work is a real page turner if ever there was one (except for the fact that some readers will want to pause to lavish their attention on the amazingly detailed urban and mountain landscapes). And this 320 page epic is only the first of FIVE volumes. For lovers of pen & ink adventure, it's almost too good to be true...
ONE COPY AVAILABLE!
All right! It may have taken longer than expected, but the second volume of the massive five volume epic that is destined to be the last word in mountaineering manga is now out at the front of the Copacetic table of new arrivals. Jiro Taniguchi is simply one of the best visual story-tellers out there, and with the help of scripter Yumemakura Baku he has here managed to produce his longest sustained narrative. Thrills, suspense, intrigue – it's all here. Read more about this work in our listing for the first volume.
This is it, the penultimate chapter of this 1,500 page mountain climbing epic scripted by Yumemakura Baku and impeccably rendered by the master of natural adventure manga, Jiro Taniguchi. Back in the day, in the intro to literature class, one of the first lessons was that there are three types of dramatic narrative: man vs. man; man vs. nature; and man vs. himself*. Well, we're here to tell you that The Summit of the Gods has all three, as the lead protagonists battle the mountains, rivals and their own fears and doubts on their way to "the summit of the gods." *(nowadays they likely have a more gender neutral way of phrasing this)
Climb on, climb on...
