[Categories: Manga Reviews]
Lament of the Lamb Chapters 21-27: Chizuna’s suffering
Kazuna’s life becomes progressively more miserable as the focus of the story shifts a little towards the situation of his sister Chizuna. The slightly, well, unsettling vibes that were lurking below the surface are much more obvious now: Chizuna is one troubled lass and no mistake.
I don’t just mean the life-threatening illness that she is suffering from: the feelings she shows towards her brother are really quite unsettling. He’s obviously a replacement for the affection she lost after their father died, even though he saw so much of his late wife in his daughter. I’m reluctant to use the term ‘incestuous overtones’ again in case it puts you off reading further (or reading the manga itself) but that’s what is portrayed here. Fortunately it’s not thrown in for shock value: the, how should I put it?, ‘unhealthy closeness’ Chizuna and Kazuna feel is perfectly in context with the story and can be justified by their circumstances. Sure, it’s bizarre and evokes feelings of unease that I can’t put into words but Kei Toume has built up a background for his characters that make such themes work in favour of the plot rather than against it.
Kazuna’s increasing withdrawal from his normal life is shown to great and painful effect through some emotional exchanges with his classmate Kinoshita. In order to protect his would-be romantic interest Yaegashi from his potentially dangerous attacks, he’s avoiding her which hurts her deeply but makes her all the more intent on meeting him. This situation was explored in the last volume and explored well so I’ll leave that for now and concentrate on another new development: Chizuna’s condition.
In addition to having decidedly mixed feelings about her younger brother, Chizuna’s emotional and physical state is cause for concern for Minase who seems powerless to give her the comfort and treatment that she so desparately needs. We learn some more details about his relationship with Chizuna as well as the more general background to the Takashiro family.
Highly unusual emotional ties aside, this volume provides well-written drama and the unusual approach to the vampire myth: instead of the horror aspects, it focuses on the effects of the sufferers’ condition on those around them. In Lament of the Lamb it’s not a supernatural gift or curse but a very real and tangible physical condition and portrays the results accordingly. This volume rates highly on the angst-ometer scale and has some gritty artwork to match but crucially it gives a very human take on how a painful and life-threatening illness affects ordinary human lives. As both a manga story and a vampire tale, Lament of the Lamb makes for a very different and very interesting read.
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