Dream Fossil: The Complete Stories of Satoshi Kon

Ever since we started getting Kon’s manga over here, I’ve been waiting to read the one which would live up to the genius of his films.  “Tropic of the Sea” was an early work which showed some promise, but was largely unremarkable.  “Opus” felt like it would’ve made for a great movie, but along with “Seraphim” it remains an unfinished work.  So I went into “Dream Fossil” with the hope and expectation that this would be the manga which finally offered validation of Kon’s talent on the printed page.  That occasionally happened.  It has its moments, but this collection of short stories really succeeds in driving home the concept that Kon had the right idea in shifting his ambitions to film.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still some worthy stories in this collection.  The problem is that most of them come off as pretty run-of-the-mill without much in the way of fresh ideas or unique perspectives to distinguish them.  “Carve,” the first story exemplifies this trend with its story of outlaw ESPers fighting against the government forces which want to control them.  It’s one of his earlier works and while the laid-back pace is isn’t something you’ll normally find in this kind of story, you’ve pretty much seen everything in this story done before and better elsewhere.  Subsequent stories like “Horseplay,” “Baseball Brats,” “Summer of Anxiety,” and “Focus” revolve around the travails of youth. Whether they involve kids playing baseball or dealing with the anxieties of highschool, they’re marked by a lack of surprise in the storytelling.  They’re still competent, polished pieces of work, but not ones that grab you and pull you in while you’re reading them.

Unsurprisingly, given the nature of his films, Kon fares better when he introduces a little surrealism into the lives of ordinary people.  “Guests” tells the story of a middle-class family that got a great deal on their new house, which turn out to be not too far removed from the setup for “Poltergeist.”  It manages to be amusing and scary in equal parts as the parents try to keep their kids from making a fuss, until the supernatural presence becomes too great for them to ignore.  “Waira” is almost what “Predator” would have been like if it was set in feudal Japan, as a lord flees from a rebellion while he and his retainers are hunted by a mysterious presence.  I’ll spoil this much:  It’s not an alien.  Yet the story manages a good deal of suspense from the hunting of the lord and his men, which also leads to a satisfying climax.

The best story in the collection, however, is the delightfully screwball “Beyond the Sun” where a grandmother in a hospital gets a high-speed trip to the beach after the brakes fail on her bed.  We see her flying through the sky, crashing through houses, and courting near-miss after near-miss with traffic, most of which also involve an unfortunate infant who winds up coming along for the ride.  Do yourself a favor and don’t try to pretend that any of what happens here is believable.  Just let yourself be carried away by the frantic energy the story presents, which compares quite favorably to any classic Warner Bros. cartoon.

“Toriko,” the final story, is a tale of youthful rebellion as teens try to take down a prison state with predictable results.  It’s not all that good, but it’s worth noting that this was the very first manga Kon did and, as it’s listed as an “Tesuya Chiba Award, Excellent Newcomer” recipient, likely the one that got him his foot in the door for the industry.  For all I know, Katsuhiro Otomo saw it and thought “This is the kind of guy I want as an assistant while I’m working on ‘Akira!’”  It led to bigger and better things in Kon’s career, is what I’m saying.  Then again, his manga work essentially amounts to a stepping stone for his film work.  None of the stories here are truly bad and a few are actually quite good.  Yet it’s best appreciated by people who are already fans of Kon and are looking to see how he got his start.