Nijigahara Holograph

This is one of those stories you tend to read over and over again just so you could make more sense out of it and no matter how many times you read it, you find something different about it, something you never noticed was right there. That is the beauty of Nijigahara Holograph, and the gift which comes from the genius mind of Inio Asano, the creator of the beautiful manga, Solanin.

It's funny how the name, Rainbow Field Holograph, is somewhat of a contrast to the theme of the manga. Where the title gives the reader the feeling that the manga will be full of rainbows & marshmallows, the reality is much the opposite.
The manga starts with surrealistic, yet existent images; these images, spread across different panels and different pages, representing some pivotal moment in each character's life, are made up of factors affecting their present and future which in-turn are affected by their worn-out, conflicted, and secretive pasts. Try not to get confused as these confusing images may not seem related but, for your information, it is these images which prove as pieces to a jigsaw puzzle; once they end, they give rise to the start of a story which is, actually, the beginning of the end rather than the actual beginning.

Then, when the reader realizes that the story has followed into another story (one spanning over 10 years) – a story within stories (more like stories within a story) – this one more deep than the rest, and the rest even deeper when thought about later, the reader gets even more entangled in the web that is Nijigahara Holograph. Moreover, the general theme of the manga would be life itself – dark, dreary, without hope, selfish humans, humans taking without feeling. I came to face such horrors while reading this that I read this manga over three times with some kind of perverse incredulity about the fact that I live in the same world these people do. It's just bizarre how we tend to live under the same sky with such different people inhabiting it, with us, side-by-side, without us even ever knowing the tragedies facing them or what sort of mind-sets these people have – we will never know unless we come face-to-face with them ourselves – and I pray we never do.

The major aspect of the story is the butterflies, which may or may not make sense even when you have reached the end or you have managed to read the manga a couple of times. Apparently, after I did some research, Asano's Nijigahara Holograph is mostly based upon Taoism. There is an excerpt from one of the chapters' panel from Chuang Tszu's techings. It says, "Once upon a time, I, (personal name of Chuang Tzu), dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction." In my opinion, this manga revolves around a complex attitude towards life, in general. It has nothing to do with Religion or one's (or the characters') Beliefs. It is how things are and how things must be. Maybe Life, the life we are living, is not real. Maybe what we think is real, is just the trick of the mind. Maybe Reality is coexistent with the things which aren't real.

Whatever the case is, the butterflies signify the arrival of something important, a calamity, a revelation; whatever it is, it will change the flow of things, resulting in how things should have been in the first place.

These butterflies are associated with a character, a little girl. Every event that takes place in the story is irrevocably linked to her. We can say that she is the pinnacle, as well as the pedestal, on which the story is based on and on whom it ascends, and ends, with the help of.

When I start reading a manga, the art will be the first thing I'll notice. For me, good art matters a lot even if I don't like the story all that much. However, there have been times when I found the story rather more appealing than the art itself. Nijigahara Holograph, on the other hand, is one manga whose art actually portrays the story rather than being unidentifiably individualistic to it.
I just love this manga – not only does it capture the reality of life, it captures its essence and the art ascertains the fact that the reader establishes a strong connection to the story through it. The art is beautiful; it captivates the attention even if it does not wish to seek it. The details are a visual orgasm of things left behind for us to recall and reflect upon, to be curious about and to simply (un)acknowledge, to fear over and to be disgusted with.

The way things are drawn, it's difficult to conceive the beauty of things; what is most amazing is how every single object in the storyline (living or otherwise) has a personality. The magnitude of complexity of detail is astounding; focus is a MUST. Emotions are drawn vividly, without mercy, making the reader digest fully the nature of what is being read. Personally, I think the mangaka has paid complete attention to how the things are supposed to be drawn rather than what; my view is that he has fixated himself upon nature, overall. How nature effects all reasons of outcome.

All in all, the art is inconspicuously remarkable. The expressions are instantaneous and it's as if it is not a manga being read but a film with moving pictures; watching as the scene changes oh-so-smoothly.
The character design is explicitly subliminal; meaning that every character's personality has been described to the last detail without having to spell it out. It's simply amazing how the reader can grasp the entire persona of the character's, even how unstable it may seem. Every character is unique, having their own problems, their own dilemmas, and their very own secrets kept away from prying eyes & ears.

Suzuki Amahiko is a disturbed individual with disparaging views of those around him, hating the world for being so unfair; he rarely tries to connect with the people he's with, and refrains from having any ties with them; he has always been shunned from society, moving from one place to another with parents who he knows aren't really his, and attempting suicide more than once. Then comes the girl who seems to be at the centre of it all, Kimura Arie; ever since the manga starts, I have thought of her to have lost all innocence from the day she achieved ethereal beauty; I sympathize for her – all she ever wanted was something everyone desires, having it all go against her in ways which would extract profanities from the reader's mouth; the life she has led would be the cruelest, and most unsettling of all. Komatsuzaki is an aggressive character who acts in unpredictable ways and whose actions have a veritable significance. Sakaki is the trio's homeroom teacher for whom Suzuki has somewhat mature feelings for; she injured one eye in an 'accident' which fits yet another puzzle of the story. There are a few more 'main' characters whose roles are noteworthy in themselves.

I must applaud Asano on how he achieved such character depth within a mere manga spanning almost 300 pages.

At the end of the day, this manga needs concentration in every single way. It teaches every reader something new, something different – what I learned, or got, from it, would be unlike some other reader's life-lesson learned. For me, it indulges in the credence that everyone has a role in life to play and that everyone plays a vital part in someone else's role. People living interrelated lives, having complicated mindsets, yet existing in a clandestine past, and living a lie – this is what Nijigahara Holograph is. Funny enough, it is a whirlwind of feelings with characters that have none.

The story starts with.. well, it’s hard to say where it starts.

This manga isn’t written in chronological order.
You might be thinking “That doesn’t sound too hard to understand. I have read a manga once that made a flashback that spun across a couple of chapters – or maybe even a volume or two. You can just piece it back, can’t you?”. No. Nijigahara Holograph’s story telling is more of a puzzle. Yes, you get the pieces. Yes, the pieces are not in order at first, and you have to piece it together. But when every damn character’s story is chopped to pieces, and blended together, then liquefied using a mixer, the story stops being a puzzle and becomes something else.

So it’s hard to say where it starts. I read the manga, then a post explaining the whole story (the amount that was given to us), so I can give a quick “intro” instead.

A woman that had gone missing on the local tunnel is found dead, confirming the children’s legend that the tunnel is haunted by “a great evil”.
Then a couple of friends sacrifice their fellow classmate (the child of the dead woman) by throwing her to the tunnel, in order to “save the world” from “the great calamity”.
11 years later, they start to get drawn to each other again.

This is all I can tell without spoiling. The story is very intriguing, and makes you want to grasp it all. Be warned though that the story has multiple explicit moments; also contains rape, domestic abuse, suicide, murder and more which might disturb you greatly.

The art is great, as expected from Inio Asano. There are subtle details which contribute
to the story.

I don’t understand much about “character development”, but I can sure say you won’t get the characters most of the time, as it is tied to the story, and the story is.. you get the point.

Final thoughts:
It is not a fun experience, and although I didn’t expect any fun from it, it greatly decreased my mood. It doesn’t just upset you, it crashes you deep inside. It won’t make you a better person and it might make you a worse person. I ain't poet, so I will stop here.

I know, I know that I gave the story the lowest rating possible.

I know it sounds harsh but it isn't.

If you actually read the reviews next to mine or ask a person who's read the story what's it about, I can assure you that no one understands the plot, if there actually was one.

The only things I understood was that their were hallucinations of butterflies and that everyone from the elementary school that had met a girl named Kimura could see them and had become psychologically unstable.

Now, the thing is, I don't know if it was about Monarch Programming, if it was the symptoms of their type of insanity, if it was the idea of waking up to believe that you're still dreaming or if the writer had taken a healthy snort of cocaine and continuously smoked a bong while writing this story; the butterflies were almost everywhere and by the end of the story, you almost fear their presence.

I had read a similar story to this one, with similar illustrations but I had eventually gotten the concept but Nijigahara Holograph (aka. Rainbow/Two Children Field Holograph) was a blur of images and random moments that could simply be described as senseless.

It was like sitting through a (input horrible/nonsensical topic here) lecture, like someone juicing your brain. This story may or may not have hidden meanings but the writer failed, Failed with a capital F, to make that meaning comprehensible to a human being who's not possessed nor high on whatever the writer was high on.

The characters were... I don't know. To be honest I don't understand anything about the story; only bits and pieces to an enormous puzzle that had missing pieces already.

You just can't get your head around this story but I can tell you a feeling I had felt while reading this; it was the feeling that there was something desperately wrong with the story, I don't know what it was but there is something wrong, something deeply wrong.

The illustrations were the type that makes everything look putrid (similar to the story), where you'd find eyes that are one color: black. The whole story was in a theme that was macabre but it wasn't totally orthodox macabre, not the macabre that you or I have learned to acknowledge but it was like a new level of macabre, the story's illustrations sucked the life out of life, if you can comprehend the phrase. Was it realistic? I can't say so, everything looked so bulky and inhuman. Did it have details? Somewhat, I guess.

I will resolutely tell you not to read this story, whatever you've read or heard about this story be damned. Know that this story is nonsense, it was 291 pages too long, and that it can't be said to be a waste of your time. No, it's worse than that. I don't know how to describe it but just don't read it, no one should willingly get this confused.