The idea of taking on an online persona to escape the pressures of Real Life is hardly a new one. I found the effects of teen angst in the Internet Age in All About Lily Chou-Chou to be both effective and deeply moving, despite cultural barriers between me and foreigners a decade younger than I am. Taking this angle and running with it, Hiroshi Ishizaki’s light novel Chain Mail examines how the isolation and pressure of adolescence draws four total strangers together with fascinating results.
If you’re reading this blog at all you ought to be able to understand where Chain Mail is coming from with this. After finding it tucked away virtually unseen in the manga section of my local Waterstone’s and buying on impulse, I suspect the only people I know who’d appreciate its innovative ‘multiple viewpoint’ storytelling as I did are those I converse with online. The ‘net and the artificial realities it provides attract us all for very personal reasons but the overall promises of diversion and communication are the same.
In the case of Chain Mail three high schoolers receive an e-mail from someone calling herself Yukari who offers them the opportunity to collaborate in a mystery-thriller story with each ‘author’ taking on the role of one of the tale’s four protagonists. None of these girls know each other in real life but each has her own motive for writing a piece of fiction with complete strangers: Mai is a music fan feeling cut off from the superficial local scene after studying abroad; Sawako is a shy introvert suffering from school bullies and the loss of her mother; Mayumi is dedicated to helping her best friend succeed at badminton but is forever in her shadow.
Since empathising with the characters of this novel relies on your tolerance for the insecurities and neuroses of the average Japanese high school girl, I suspect mileage may vary. That said, it’s not hard to understand how these ordinary kids are fed up with the way their lives are heading and why they’re so keen to create their own fantasy world to escape from it. I felt for all of them to some degree since we see both their personalities’ strengths and flaws during the course of the novel, not to mention the way in which the narrative effectively sets up their circumstances and points of view.
The crime thriller aspect is interesting in itself because it’s never clear who Yukari is, and the dividing line between the girls’ lives and the fiction they are creating blurs with such frequency the general experience is that in which you’re constantly trying to guess ahead and work out what the hell is going on. The intellectual aspect, as it were, is balanced well with the slice of life and dramatic ones as you see why the girls get involved and how the experience affects them.
After the four girls begin this story of a student, her tutor, her stalker and the investigating detective in between the trials and dramas of their own lives, the novel gets really interesting. Another common plot device is that of the art imitating life; in this case real events and feelings the girls experience bleed into the plot twists of the Chain Mail story, and soon it works in the opposite direction. Without spoiling too much, a genuine kidnapping is reported in the news as one of the Chain Mail authors mysteriously stops posting and the others begin to feel an eerie sense of being watched as they update their own contributions from their mobile phones.
One asks herself if the compulsion to check for updates and write more (something I can relate to as a compulsive writer, internet addict and one who knows the meaning of “a watched inbox never fills”) is akin to a drug addict holding out for their next fix: she’s consciously aware that the Chain Mail project is her crutch for supporting the burden that student life has placed on her. Another finds it prompts her to re-evaluate her own priorities and interests; there is also a keen sense that it’s something private, precious and therefore must be kept hidden from outsiders at all costs.
The chapters are cryptically introduced with quotes from famous philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche. Initially I thought “Nietzsche in a Japanese light novel about high schoolers? What gives?” but the connection is an important plot point, rather than pretentious name-dropping it seems at first. Resolutions to these phychological mystery stories often require some suspension of disbelief and this is no exception: the explanation is a bit far-fetched but I’ve seen and read a lot worse (yes, Satoshi Kon, I’m even looking at you). The resolution is realistic enough though and made me smile at the bittersweet yet appropriate way in which it wrapped the intertwining threads up.
The translation is always something that has me frustrated: unable to read kana or kanji with any fluency yet irritated by clumsy adaptations, I admit I’m hard to please at times. I’ve read one or two that are wonderful while some are downright awful but Chain Mail comes out on the more natural and readable end of the spectrum, which is a pleasant surprise considering how Tokyopop have been met with mixed reviews of their text novels in the past. It’s intended (I think) for a teenage readership, its protagonists are adolescents and the story-within-a-story needs to reflect that too; the prose is straightforward but doesn’t feel stilted or awkward.
As an aside, I found the story to be particularly immersive because the events all unfold in the bustling, cosmopolitan cityscape of central Tokyo. The little details like place names and even brands of drinks in the vending machines gave me a sensation of familiarity. Granted, a foreign tourist won’t feel exactly the same way as an introverted teenage resident but reading the descriptions of their surroundings took me right back to the crowded capital and reminded me that, even in a place such as this, it’s still easy to feel disorientated and alone.
I know Tokyopop’s manga titles are largely well-known ones and are stocked in most places but their text novels often receive less publicity and are harder to find. I hadn’t heard or read a thing about this one and merely skimmed over the synopsis on the back cover while looking for other things, so it was pure chance that I picked it up at all. In the space of a few days I was utterly hooked and looked forward to my next coffee- or lunch break to see where the story would go next. Although it’s squarely in the light novel/young adult bracket the “Ohshitohshit I was supposed to be back at work ten minutes ago but I’m still reading!” effect it had on me ought to indicate that it does its job well. It’s a shame then that it’s been so overlooked for an easily digestible page-turner.
Since this is a text novel there aren’t any screencaps or scans. The cover art looked a bit nondescript so I turned to Danbooru and my holiday photos for breaking up the wall of text. Yes, this is Shibuya, and some of the landmarks are mentioned by name in the novel…the last photo especially.