Time for another edition of my YouTube Manga Recommendation Corner! This time around it’s Mizukami Satoshi’s Spirit Circle, another of the manga I consider to be the essence of the medium – and of who I am as a fan. They just don’t get any better than this.
Patchy
January 17, 2021 at 3:36 amAh yes, one of the best mangas.
It’s funny though, that it’s one of the hardest to recomend among my peers (that and the hyouka anime), they go in, don’t even get to the first flashback and disregard it as more of the same. I think it may be a manga for people that love manga as a medium more that a manga that anyone can enjoy, unlike Monster or Pluto that can be read by casual readers and identify their brilliance at first glance. But I digress.
As you said Spirit Circle is the perfect balance of lenght, genre-mix, goofyness and seriousness. In that sense, Mizukami conveys great humility and love for the medium in a “standing atop the shoulders of giants” sense, he can do what he does because the medium speaks, he listens and plays with those things that other authors have put in there without constraining himself in trying to imitate their style. That love then extends to the humanity as he protrays the characters in his works.
Guardian Enzo
January 17, 2021 at 10:57 amBrilliantly put, thank you.
Proto
January 17, 2021 at 11:58 amI’m really really grateful for you telling me about this series a couple years back. I really enjoyed it as one of the best Seinen I’ve read. I think I’ve mentioned it before but the only story that I’ve seen works on a similar level is Murasaki iro No Qualia (https://myanimelist.net/manga/51493/Murasakiiro_no_Qualia). I think Spirit Circle is a much more concise work while Qualia the Purple sometimes goes heavy into the Sci-fi and philosophical side of things, but I would suggest it to other people who enjoyed Spirit Circle.
Guardian Enzo
January 17, 2021 at 12:27 pmI would be hard-pressed to deny that seinen is the best source of true masterpieces in manga, for all the shounen and jousei and shoujo series I’ve also loved.
Derrick
January 17, 2021 at 5:28 pmJust one aspect that I hope can inspire other mangaka is how mizukami treats his main characters as real as possible. They are living, breathing human being in a sort of cosmic tragedy. You can feel the care being put into each character.
Rita
January 21, 2021 at 3:16 pmI think spirit circle exemplifies one of Mizukami’s strengths the best- namely the ability to put emphasis and connection on the auxilliary characters with limited screentime. I’ve always been of the mindset that, aside from very good character dramas where the main character can pull the whole weight, a series really lives or dies by the strength of the supporting cast. It’s what separates a good series and a great series, at least for me.
In terms of pure screentime, we don’t actually hang out with the wide array of side characters all that much in Spirit Circle, but by putting them in all these different roles, from friend to lover to mentor to parent and exploring the different dynamics, you get sort of like this distilled essence of the bond between all the characters. I dunno how to quite explain it.
I personally still think Sengoku Youko is my favorite Mizukami series because of it’s amazing feat of convincing protagonist shift which I’ve still yet to see another series do as smoothly, but Spirit Circle is my like, emotional favorite out of all his works.
Guardian Enzo
January 21, 2021 at 6:45 pmIt’s an embarrassment of riches having to choose.
wangwang
January 24, 2021 at 10:03 amMan, what a wild ride. Thanks for recommending it.
Guardian Enzo
January 24, 2021 at 10:17 amIt’s very, very special.