Manga Review: Phantom Tales of the Night 4 by Matsuri
Butterfly runs a noodle stand as a front for his real job, greeting guests for the Owner of Murakumo Inn. It’s not your standard inn, welcoming both human and non-human guests. There is a price for staying, however…your darkest secrets. A frequent visitor to the noodle shop, Miu, is a prospective top model. On the surface she seems happy enough, thoroughly committed to not belonging to any man.
But Butterfly notices that she sometimes comes in with small cuts and bruises, and seems hollow inside. Miu isn’t sure where the wounds come from, but the hollowness is deliberate. If she’s completely empty, the audience will fill her with their own expectations and she can take on any role. Problem! Something has already come to take up the hollow space, and now Miu is spewing up flowers.
This case is well beyond Butterfly’s ability to handle, and it is all he can do to get Miu to the inn before vanishing.
The Owner diagnoses the issue, and sends Miu off with Spider and the Bone Monk. Spider must enter the World of Roots and confront an old ally of the Owner’s, Maple. From Maple, we learn that the Owner was once more interested in watching humans suffer than in helping with their problems. She wants him to return to those days.
Spider also learns more about Butterfly’s background when he meets Cherry, another tree spirit. It turns out that Spider and Butterfly are more alike than Spider wants to admit.
This horror manga is more on the genteel side than the gory side, though there are some strikingly grotesque images. Much more time is spent on discussion than on battle. Thus it comes off more on the spooky side than the terror side of horror.
There are unfolding mysteries here. How did the Owner come to change? Does the Owner (of the inn) have a “real” name? Is there a long-term plan involved, or does the Owner enjoy the random visits in and of themselves?
After the Miu case is resolved, there’s a short story about a grandmother and her seemingly callous and devide-obsessed Zoomer grandson visiting the inn. Grandmother has come there to die…or has she been dead all along?
The art is nice and well detailed, and the inn-connected characters intriguing. I fear that if this series were animated, it would wind up being one of those shows where the screen is dark most of the time and everyone talks in low tones and it gets hard to watch at night when anime conventions insist on showing it.
Miu has the annoying habit of speaking in the third person. “Miu thinks Miu should be completely hollow, then people will like Miu.” In Japanese, this is considered childlike and cute; in English not so much.
Readers who are not into picking up random volumes and starting from there might want to check out the first one to see if it’s right for them.
