Kaine (manga)

Kaine
The cover of the Japanese re-release, as published by Hakusensha (2009)
カイネ die黒とlive白の脳内麻薬物質
Genre	Thriller, Romantic comedy
Manga
Written by	Kaori Yuki
Published by	Hakusensha
Magazine	Bessatsu Hana to Yume Hana to Yume
Demographic	Shōjo
Published	18 October 1996
Volumes	1

Kaine is a short story collection written and illustrated by Kaori Yuki. It consists of four unrelated short stories: the titular story about a boy who assumes the role of his deceased, rockstar twin; "Magical Mystery Tour", which focuses on a girl who wins a trip to Los Angeles; "Orange Time Bomb"; and "Tokyo Top."

Plot

"Kaine" follows Shinogu, the unassuming twin brother of the titular rockstar. Regaining consciousness at the start of the one-shot, Shinogu discovers that the car accident that left him comatose killed Kaine, and he is thus forced by Kaine’s manager, Oda, to assume Kaine’s identity as a way for them to recoup the considerable costs associated with keeping Kaine’s numerous scandals quiet. Shinogu becomes convinced by his fragmented dreams and visits from a vengeful specter of Kaine that his twin was in fact murdered; with the help of Kaine’s mysterious guitarist and lyricist Die, he discovers that the Endorphins’ success came not from their own hard work or talent, but a high induced in listeners by a secret message encoded in the CD, which eventually induces the listeners to kill themselves.

Upon learning this, Die takes Oda to task, and Shinogu agrees to one final concert for his brother’s memory. Oda, however, schemes to have the two murdered to protect the interests of the company. Narrowly avoiding his own murder attempt, Die rescues Shinogu on stage, which triggers Shinogu's repressed memories: he realizes that he has been Kaine the entire time. Unable to cope with his destructive upbringing and the demands of fame, he conspired to switch places with his twin, whom he envied for his carefree and innocent nature. Although Kaine was unable to go through with his plans to murder his twin, Shinogu died in the ensuing car accident and Kaine’s body was mistaken for his. Kaine, finally remembering his past and his true feelings, then shoots himself on stage to Die’s horror. The manga ends with Kaine awakening in the hospital again to Die’s presence: Die affirms that his life as Kaine was only a nightmare, while privately despairing that Kaine has always had him in the palm of his hand.

Development and publication

The concept and characters for "Kaine" came together within a day. Due to page limitations and deadlines, manga artist Kaori Yuki was unable to flesh out some of the characters, something she regretted in the afterword. She thought that, because of this, some characters were unintentionally comedic. She also noted how the page limitations affected the scenes where Kaine escapes being murdered by Oda or when he sings at the concert in the climax. For the original ending, she had intended for Die to fall into madness. Although she visited a music studio to gather impressions for "Kaine," she did not use any of them, nor did she use a model for any of the characters. She acknowledged that the characters might resemble people she knows, however.

Yuki expressed her embarrassment at including the other three stories within the collection, due to their status as very early works. In her retrospective on "Magical Mystery Tour," she thought that the art was "amateurish." "Orange Time Bomb" is from the early point in her career when she wrote romantic-comedy manga. She had been having difficulty selling her manga stories, and an older colleague had advised her that she would not be successful with the particular stories and illustrations she had been pursuing. She then switched genres to romantic comedy, and although she had a few stories published, she was unhappy. It was not until she wrote a "dark, scary" miniseries with increasingly favorable reader responses that she decided that "dark" stories and the Gothic genre were most suitable for her style and potential. At the time she was writing "Tokyo Top," she was into European rock music and took inspiration from that. Its title comes from the 1988 film Tokyo Pop. She also noted a visual allusion to the 1976 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show within the story.

"Tokyo Top" appeared in the first issue of the Japanese manga magazine Hana to Yume for 1989, while "Orange Time Bomb" and "Magical Mystery Tour" were published in its sister manga magazine Bessatsu Hana to Yume in 1988 and 1990, respectively. "Kaine" was serialized in the sixth and seventh issues of Hana to Yume in 1996. The stories were compiled into a bound volume by Hakusensha and published on 18 October 1996. It was later republished on 15 September 2009. It has been translated into other languages, including French, Italian, and German.

Reception

The reviewer for Manga News recommended the collection, writing that it had potential to appeal to an audience beyond fans of the author. The reviewer praised the concept of a story centered around rock music in "Kaine" as intriguing and enjoyed the plot, despite a few artistic inconsistencies near the end with Die. While noting that the art of the other three stories was dated and from an early point in Yuki's career, the reviewer remarked that they were an interesting departure from what she is most associated with. A reviewer for Manga Sanctuary enjoyed "Kaine" as an atmospheric thriller whose plot worked well with the art, despite that some characters lacked depth. The reviewer thought that the other three stories were interesting as historical works that showed how Yuki had evolved as an author and artist. Conversely, the other reviewer for Manga Sanctuary wrote that while better than in many other shōjo manga, the art in "Kaine" did not meet expectations, and understood the plot as a cliché-filled caricature. The quality of the three older stories, according to the reviewer, showed how far Yuki had improved since then. Planete BD's Faustine Lillaz wrote that only "Kaine" was worth reading in the collection, and while she found the story's premise intriguing and character designs pleasant, the resulting plot was unnecessarily convoluted. Lillaz criticized the other three stories as uninteresting and amateur.

External links

• Kaori Yuki's official site