Manga Review: Orochi the Perfect Edition Vol. 4

Manga Review: Orochi the Perfect Edition Vol. 4 by Kazuo Umezz

Quick recap: Orochi appears to be an ordinary, generically pretty young woman, but is actually a seemingly ageless being with vaguely defined supernatural powers. She has a gift for spotting people who are going to have interesting things happen to them and following their lives. See my reviews of previous volumes.

This is the final volume in the series, containing two long stories.

“Eyes” has Orochi’s attention caught by Keiko Taguchi, a blind girl in her teens. Keiko’s been blind since birth and goes to a special school, having become quite adept at navigating her dark world. She lives with her father (no word on what happened to Mom) in company housing for the factory he works at. Her one close friend is the much younger Satoru, who used to go to the same special school before he had an operation that restored his sight.

One night, Keiko’s father is delayed coming home from work. A friend of his knocks and asks to hide from someone trying to kill him. Unfortunately, Keiko is not able to close the door fast enough, and his pursuer enters as well. This is lethal for the friend, but the intruder spares Keiko when he realizes she’s blind. Keiko passes out from the shock. When Mr. Taguchi arrives home, he foolishly picks up the murder knife, getting his fingerprints over it. It’s at this point the police arrive and arrest him.

Keiko’s wild tale of a stranger and the description she gives based on hearing and smell clues are dismissed by the police, especially as none of her neighbors saw any such person. They’re very comfortable with the suspect they have, thank you. They don’t even do a search of the house for clues.

Later, Keiko finds the real killer’s ID card which he dropped in the struggle, but the name kanji are too difficult for Satoru to read, and the card is accidentally destroyed before she can get it to the police, who scoff at the possible existence of such a thing.

Meanwhile, the killer realizes he’s lost his ID, and where that must have happened. (But of course, doesn’t know that it’s been destroyed.) The rest of the story is a cat and mouse thriller between him, Keiko and Satoru.

This is intense, exciting stuff. The killer’s motivation and the reason Keiko can’t get help from the neighbors is very Seventies. But Orochi is barely in the story, and only observes the goings-on. There’s no supernatural element other than Orochi’s observation.

“Blood” is about the Monzen sisters, Kazusa and Risa. Kazusa is a couple of years older, and the very model of a good little girl that brings honor to her prestigious family. Risa is…not. Risa is constantly compared unfavorably to her older sister and emotionally abused by her relatives and the servants. Unsurprisingly, this results in Risa acting out, which gets her labelled as “difficult” and “wicked.” Only Kazusa is ever kind to Risa.

Orochi has infiltrated the mansion, initially to see what was inside, then to observe the sisters. No one seems to notice. She watches for decades as the sisters reach adulthood, get married and lose their husbands. (Kazusa by becoming a widow, Risa through divorce.) Orochi senses that the worst is yet to come. Risa drives drunk, and is about to crash when Orochi intervenes for the first time, protecting Risa with her body.

While Orochi survives the experience, we finally learn one of her limitations. Once every hundred years, she must sleep for a couple of decades to keep from aging. While her actual age isn’t specified, we do learn she’s been around since the 18th Century. Due to the severe injuries from the car crash, the sleep has been triggered early. It’s all Orochi can do to find a cave to hide in.

While Orochi’s body undergoes the Orochisleep, her consciousness somehow finds itself inhabiting the body of Yoshiko. Yoshiko is a teenage orphan whose foster parents are exploiting her labor. This doesn’t last too long as the wicked stepparents are only too eager to sell Yoshiko to a stranger who claims to be related to her. Orochi, while awake and able to see and sense everything Yoshiko’s body does, cannot actually control the body or affect Yoshiko’s actions.

The stranger turns out to be Risa, now an older woman. She explains that Yoshiko is a distant relative of the Monzen family (there is a resemblance) and she was touched by the girl’s plight, so bought her as a companion for the now bedridden Kazusa.

Treated well for the first time in her life, Yoshiko quickly bonds with Kazusa and works as her companion faithfully. Unfortunately, the better Yoshiko gets on with Kazusa, the more angry and abusive Risa becomes, seemingly framing her for small crimes to have an excuse to berate and abuse her.

When it looks like Kazusa’s heart is about to finally give out, Yoshiko trips on the stairs and starts dying herself.

Orochi wakes up back in her own body, rotting clothing and all. She’s convinced the Yoshiko thing was not a dream and hurries back to the Monzen mansion. Sure enough, there’s the now elderly sisters and the dying body of Yoshiko. Orochi is emotionally invested in a way she’s never been before, having experienced Yoshiko’s life directly.

And then there are a series of reveals, including Yoshiko’s actual thoughts that Orochi never heard, that hammer home the tragedy of the situation. Stunned, Orochi walks away but no one there notices, only a passerby as she faded from view.

A very bizarre story to finish the collection. Who and what Orochi actually is, we will never know. Presumably, she is still out there, watching humanity.

The art continues to be excellent, highly detailed when it needs to be, and giving the feeling of the darkness surrounding the characters.

Because the last story is about abuse, sensitive readers should exercise caution.

Overall, Orochi is more of a “horror host” than an actual character in the stories, and they tend to be light on the supernatural, so this collection may appeal more to people who like horror-tinged thrillers than to the supernatural horror fan. Some fine work though.