Review: Black Sun Silver Moon

Black Sun Silver Moon, vol. 1
by Tomo Maeda
Rated OT, 16+
Go!Comi, $10.99

I know that there is a whole genre of clergy manga in Japan, but it’s still weird for a nice Catholic girl with me to read a story like Black Sun, Silver Moon, in which the main characters are supposed to be priests.

Both men look good in black and have vaguely supernatural qualities, but that’s as priestly as they get. The only religious imagery in the book is the cross on top of the church where they live.

This church features no regular services, let alone a Ladies Sodality or Altar Society. Shikimi Farkash, the priest in residence, is 28 but looks considerably younger, except for his silver hair and eyes. Taki Juhas is his indentured servant, pledged to be Shikimi’s maid/helper/dogsbody because his large family (10 children—OK, that’s Catholic) owes a debt to the church. At first, Taki’s duties seem to be limited to cleaning and pouring tea, but when darkness falls, Shikimi brings him out to the graveyard for a little plot exposition. It seems that the dead in these areas have been rising from their graves, and if left alone they will devour the living. Shikimi and Taki must prevent this by decapitating them as they rise. And there’s more, of course. Shikimi’s silver hair and eyes are signs that he is gradually turning into a demon. Someday, he says, Taki must kill him.

This is not one of those books that leaves you wondering what is going on. Shikimi explains everything pretty much as it happens—why the dead are rising, what part he has in it, why the stray puppy that shows up in chapter 2 keeps biting Taki. I like this sort of straightforward exposition, but the story is so well defined that by the end of volume 1 I was wondering what else is left to tell. It’s not that I don’t have questions: Why is Shinkimi turning into a demon? Is there a way to stop it? Taki asks these questions but doesn’t pursue them. Instead, the events unfold in a linear fashion, one following logically from the next. So far, there haven’t been any surprises.

Naturally, the priest getup and the fact that the main characters are both smooth-faced young men raises suggest that this book might have a BL component, but the characters don’t really seem to connect. Shikimi definitely has the upper hand, and he has fun ordering Taki around and teaching him various lessons. Taki spends a lot of time wondering about Shikimi and pledges his loyalty to him pretty early, but I didn’t sense much chemistry. Lack of affect is part of this: Shikimi always seems to have a cheery smile, even when he is explaining about the undead, which takes away somewhat from the gravity of the scene. That’s actually a plot point, but it’s an unfortunate choice as it makes him hard to warm up to.

The book ends with a separate story, a charming little tale of a king who looks like a little kid. There are no surprises, but it’s a fun read. Unfortunately, it means that we get only 135 pages of the main story, which may be another reason why the characters don’t seem to have developed much.

Like the story, Maeda’s art is straightforward. Although rotting corpses do rise from their graves, and there is a fair amount of swordplay and bloodletting, the art isn’t particularly gruesome. It’s really more cozy than scary. Maeda’s backgrounds are simple, just screentones or patterns, which is a shame, as more detail could have helped set the mood.

This being a Go!Comi book, the production is excellent, with an attractive, sharply printed cover and extras in the back—author’s notes and an article about the Japanese equivalent of the Ouija board. The paper is decent enough to hold the large areas of solid black pretty well.

Black Sun Silver Moon won’t change your life, but it’s an enjoyable, undemanding read with more humor than horror.

(This review is based on a complimentary copy supplied by the publisher.)

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Comments

  1. ChunHyang72 says

    I know that there is a whole genre of clergy manga in Japan, but it’s still weird for a nice Catholic girl with me to read a story like Black Sun, Silver Moon, in which the main characters are supposed to be priests.

    I know what you mean! I’ve yet to see a manga when a priest did anything as mundane as pass out communion wafers…

  2. You should see the priest in Innocent Bird.

  3. Mangakas has no idea the functions of a real catholic priest. To them nuns and priests are just gaijins with costumes. They assume they would be similar to buddhist monks or shinto priests, but at the end of the day they’d rather ignore any religious aspect of it all. Religion, especially Western religion, is big in Japan only in term of the imagery. In fact, priests and nuns are an adult manga (and porn in general) sub-category. I just pray you’ll never get your hand on one of those titles… I was going to mention a notorious nun-related character but I am seriously afraid that you’re going to to search for it, and swear off manga forever. :)

  4. as a fan of this particular mangaka I was… put off by this particular read…
    She should have stuck to the BL, as her art is much more suited to it.

  5. I disagree. I actually like BSSM’s story. It’s fiction so you can’t expect everything in it to be as it is in real life. Looking at the story and the plot, I think it’s actually a great manga.

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  2. […] boys-love manga. Black Sun, Silver Moon was originally published by Go! Comi in 2007 (I reviewed the first volume), but the company folded and the series is out of print. However, vol. 1 is available on the […]