Kondoh, Akino – Nothing Whatsoever All Out In The Open

Website

Nothing Whatsoever All Out In The Open

Ah right, this is the part where I have to boil this comic down for you. I was sitting here and absorbing what I read when I remembered that that won’t be enough for a review. The theme of this comic seems to be the moments when you’re almost out of reach of a feeling or event, but still consciously aware that it might be a real thing. Too vague? OK, how about “stories about surreal happenings that are more real to the person that what is actually happening around them”? That’s closer, maybe. Anyway, this one contains three stories, and after the first one you have to flip the book over and read the remaining stories like manga (i.e. right to left). First up is Metamorfosa, in which we see a young woman cleaning her apartment for a date. While she’s doing this something hard and round falls from her eye, which leads to her entering this thing with her mind, leading to some problems with reality when her date shows up. I probably missed some of the nuance from the other stories because my American brain isn’t trained to handle reading right to left (either that or the sideways text blocks threw me off), but other stories include this young woman interacting with her child and an enticing black hole, and a feeling she has right before sleep that someone is trying to drag her away. This someone starts off as a child and becomes more menacing as the story goes on, but I won’t ruin the ending for you. After reading these stories I’m mostly left with a vague sense of unease, that I’m missing things out of the corner of my eye while I’m concentrating on writing this. After all, for all I know there’s somebody behind me too, waiting for me to drift off just a little bit so they too can drag me away into a cabinet. In other words, read this and enjoy! $6