Salute to Stones of Power

Among the numerous amateur-created Japanese manga published within the 16 original issues of GEN Manga, Azumi Isora’s “Stones of Power” was debatably the most polished and professional. In fact, the refined and engaging story is actually superior to many commercially published professional manga. The collected Stones of Power is an excellent self-contained book and an intriguing introduction to characters and scenarios that demand new stories.

Stones of Power revolves around Harushige Fujita, a young man that coincidentally patronizes a mysterious café run by beautiful & mysterious siblings. Katanobu Ozaki, the elder brother, serves tea while his younger sister Youko runs a popular side-business crafting custom-made jewelry using “power stones” rumored to have mystical influences. The siblings hire tropical fish expert Fujita to oversee the spawning of their rare, endangered Arowana fish. As Fujita cares for the fish, the fish create an ethereal bond with him that proves to be more important than he could every guess. Following the successful birth of a new brood of Arowana fish, Katanobu is commissioned to exorcise a troublesome mystical stone. Katanobu brings along Youko and Fujita on the job. Fujita unknowingly brings along his own spiritual companions that have immense mystical power.

Stones of Power is a subtle, graceful supernatural drama that lays out plentiful narrative clues for readers to assemble. The manga’s cast is small, but each character is distinctive and unique. The story masterfully characterizes Fujita through his dialogue and actions in place of blunt exposition. The astute reader will easily realize that siblings Katanobu and Youko are much more than they seem, in both the mortal realm and the world of the supernatural. The volume’s two sequential stories unfold with a measured pace that feels deliberate and atmospheric. The story takes its time to allow events to unfold rather than rushing into plot developments. In effect, the storytelling feels rich and nuanced, involving and intriguing.

Azumi Isora’s graphic art is delicate and fine, stylish and attractive but never overpowering or distracting. The ethereal art deftly enhances the story’s mature pacing. The book’s layout is especially interesting. Panels vary in size and position but never interfere with a simple sense of linear flow. The creative panel layout gives the art a mature and stylish tone.

GEN Manga’s compilation of Stones of Power contains the chapters originally serialized in GEN Manga volumes 11 through 16 and 42 additional previously unpublished pages that finish the story’s second episode. The revealing concluding pages alone justify the collected volume for new readers and readers that enjoyed the story during its initial unfinished serialization. The print quality on this book is marginally inferior to GEN Manga’s typical high standards. The seeming digital transfer to printed page appears to have lost a minor degree of fidelity, and screentones have a subtle but noticeable moiré. However, the art reproduction flaws are minor enough that some readers may not apprehend anything wrong. A slightly more bothersome problem in this volume is word balloons in the first story arc appearing too close to the binding, meaning that on select pages reading all of the text is difficult without spreading the book open wide enough to nearly break the binding. Most readers will be able to easily interpret the obscured text, but slightly realigning the printing or changing the size of the page images would have been an optimal solution. The flaw only affects the book’s first third, and only periodic pages within that third.

Granting small flaws as a consequence of GEN Manga being a small indie publisher with limited resources, Azumi Isora’s Stones of Power is well worth readers’ investment. The two sequential stories contained in the book are complete and self-contained yet hint at fascinating back-stories and future potential. The tale, while grounded in everyday reality, skillfully transcends into breathtaking and even threatening supernatural suspense. Readers that have enjoyed manga such as CLAMP’s XXXHOLiC will find that Stones of Power has a similar aesthetic and tone while excluding the goofy slapstick humor that pervades XXXHOLiC. Stones of Power is a marvelous, cinematic and atmospheric supernatural drama that will please any reader that appreciates intelligently sublime comics, provided the reader is ready to pay close attention and pick up the numerous subtle characterization and storytelling breadcrumbs that the story provides.