notes
Things that do not belong on a character page. This page assumes you have read the whole thing, including the ending.
translation differences
I started with four Japanese volumes I could not read, then spent three years on whatever translations were circulating, then reread everything in the Viz editions from 2010. Notes from that, with the caveat that I am comparing two English texts, which tells you about the translators and not directly about Hayashida.
- register. The older translation gave most of the Hole characters a flatter, more neutral voice. Viz differentiates much harder — more slang, more distinct rhythms per speaker. I prefer the Viz approach, but I noticed I had built some of my sense of certain characters on the flatter version, which is worth being honest about.
- the mouth-man. His speech is formatted distinctly from ordinary dialogue and the two versions handle it differently enough that the effect changes: in one he reads as an intrusion, in the other more like a separate person in the room. I do not know which is closer to the original and my friend in Kyoto, when I asked, said "both, sort of," which was not helpful.
- food. Dish names get localised inconsistently across both editions. Trivial, except that food is doing real work in this book and the specific dish sometimes matters to the joke.
- sound effects. The older version left most untouched. Viz replaces more. Biggest visual difference between the editions and I do not have a strong opinion, which possibly means I should reread with it in mind.
recurring motifs
Things Hayashida draws over and over. Limited to ones where I think I can say what they are doing.
- food. Most obvious and most underrated. Characters eat constantly, meals are drawn with more care than most of the fights, and nearly every important relationship is established over a table rather than in dialogue. If you are trying to work out what two characters are to each other, watch who cooks. The last chapter knows this about itself.
- doors. The mechanism by which sorcerers enter Hole, and therefore the mechanism of the entire premise. But she also draws ordinary doors with unusual attention, and the visual rhyme means every door in the book carries a low-level threat.
- teeth. Everywhere. Caiman's obviously, but also in architecture, machinery, and the mushrooms. I think it is mostly a texture decision that became a signature rather than a symbol, but it is consistent enough that I keep looking for a system.
- smoke. Magic is literally emitted as smoke, so the visual vocabulary of power in this book is a substance that obscures. The panels get harder to read as the magic gets stronger. That cannot be accidental.
- repair. Bodies are damaged and put back. Prosthetics, stitching, replacement, healing. The book is much more interested in what can be fixed than in what can be destroyed, which is unusual for something this violent, and it is the thing the ending finally cashes in.
things I was wrong about
Kept here rather than quietly deleted. If you are going to run a site like this for thirteen years you should have to show your working.
2016-11-20 — the big one
From 2009 until 2016 the Nikaido page said, in more words, that she was the book's ordinary-person viewpoint and that her function was to be the normal one. I built that reading in about chapter six and then never revisited it, because the pages kept being consistent with it and I stopped checking. It is wrong, it was wrong for seven years, and several people told me so and I assumed they were reading ahead and being coy. Rewritten page is here. The lesson I actually took is that a reading which survives a long time is not confirmed, it is just unexamined.
From 2009 until 2016 the Nikaido page said, in more words, that she was the book's ordinary-person viewpoint and that her function was to be the normal one. I built that reading in about chapter six and then never revisited it, because the pages kept being consistent with it and I stopped checking. It is wrong, it was wrong for seven years, and several people told me so and I assumed they were reading ahead and being coy. Rewritten page is here. The lesson I actually took is that a reading which survives a long time is not confirmed, it is just unexamined.
2012-05 — magic immunity
I had described Caiman's immunity as absolute. It is not, and the qualification turns out to matter. Cut the paragraph rather than patching it, because patching would have preserved the shape of the wrong idea.
I had described Caiman's immunity as absolute. It is not, and the qualification turns out to matter. Cut the paragraph rather than patching it, because patching would have preserved the shape of the wrong idea.
2011-04 — Noi and En
Had their relationship wrong on the original Noi page. Not a translation issue, just me not reading carefully. Corrected quietly at the time, logged here later because it seemed inconsistent to log one and not the other.
Had their relationship wrong on the original Noi page. Not a translation issue, just me not reading carefully. Corrected quietly at the time, logged here later because it seemed inconsistent to log one and not the other.
2009-ish — the genre
For the first two years I described this to people as a horror comic with comedy in it. I now think that is backwards, or at least that the ordering is the wrong question. I do not have a better formulation, which is why this is on the corrections page and not in an essay.
For the first two years I described this to people as a horror comic with comedy in it. I now think that is backwards, or at least that the ordering is the wrong question. I do not have a better formulation, which is why this is on the corrections page and not in an essay.
2018-09 — the ending, provisionally
Adding this one pre-emptively. I said on the front page that the happy ending is the thing the whole book was arguing for. I believe that today. I have believed things about this comic for seven years and been wrong, so consider that paragraph provisional and check back.
Adding this one pre-emptively. I said on the front page that the happy ending is the thing the whole book was arguing for. I believe that today. I have believed things about this comic for seven years and been wrong, so consider that paragraph provisional and check back.