The Drops of God vol. 3

With this third volume, the series has settled into a comfortable and familiar groove.  Shizuku will encounter someone in crisis or distress that will somehow be related to wine, much investigating by himself and his associate Miyabi will be done, and we will all have learned something new about this classiest of beverages before the arc is over.  I was expecting more than this based on the hype for this title, but there’s no denying that it’s a satisfyingly executed take on some very familiar tropes, bolstered by its focus on a subject that has a lot of depth to it.  I’m enjoying it, but this volume unwittingly begins what may be an extended journey into the realm of self-parody.

Shizuku’s quest to find the first of his father’s “apostles,” what he considered to be the greatest wines of all time with the “drops of god” sitting above them all, has him crossing paths with an amnesiac painter.  The only thing she can recall of her past life is the taste of a certain wine which she has tried to capture in her art.  Convinced that this wine of her memory is one of the apostles, Shizuku pledges to help this woman regain what she has lost while his rival Issei takes a more unorthodox approach to rooting it out at a Buddhist temple.

Even if the events play out in a predictable fashion, the buildup is handled well enough that the payoff is still satisfying.  So I could tell you that Shizuku hands Issei his ass in determining the identity of the apostle, and remain confident that it wouldn’t spoil your enjoyment of it.  That’s how rock solid the execution is.  It’s to the point where I can still be involved with the characters and the story even though I now think that if this was ever made into a movie, it would wind up being a Will Ferrell comedy.

This is due in part to the how the series loves to combine eye-rolling coincidences and sentimentality, best (or worst, depending on your point of view) seen in when the painter regains her memory and we learn her tragic backstory.  Then we bear witness to a final resolution with her lover which tosses suspension of disbelief right out the window.  It grates on me, but not enough to smother my enjoyment of the rest of the story.  What’s really pushing this tale into the realm of self-parody is Shizuku’s visualizations of the effects the wine has on him.  

Now the creators have their work cut out for them in this regard as it’s impossible to convey taste directly through a visual medium, so they’ve cleverly tried to replicate the sensation through artistic metaphor.  Unfortunately, they’ve turned out to be a bit too clever for their own good.  It started off simply enough in the first volume, with Shizuku visualizing Queen after tasting one wine in the first volume, but the interpretations of the taste of a good glass of wine have become increasingly elaborate and ridiculous.  Having Shizuku imagine that he’s walking through a fruit-filled forest, passing underneath a sacred fig tree, before coming to a lake, and almost literally spreading the wings of imagination from there goes way beyond imparting any kind of sensation of taste to the reader.  The same goes for his encounters with a “forsaken castle” and a “mummified queen” later on.  Now, I’ve already admitted that I’m more of a social drinker than anything else and have never tasted wine that I want to drink on a regular basis, so maybe I really am missing out on not just the point but a truly revelatory experience as well.  However, as a series whose stated purpose is to broaden people’s awareness of mine, this is way too over-the-top for that.  It’s so ridiculous that you would need a man like Ferrell, who can take ANYTHING seriously, to bring it back down to Earth again.

That said, I think self-parody is best enjoyed when a series is completely unaware of how far over the line it has gone (see also:  “Future Diary”).  It’s also what makes giving something the “Mystery Science Theater” treatment so much fun.  So even if Shizuku’s visualizations about the effect wine has on him are only going to get more elaborate from here on out, I am perversely captivated by the thought of seeing just how far the creators will go in that regard.  I’m not sure if the results will result in something that can objectively be called “good” so your mileage will undoubtedly vary.