Variante, Vols. 1-4 | PopCultureShock (original) (raw)

Posted by: on September 7, 2008 at 6:59 pm

Variante, Vol. 1 – 4

By Iqura Sugimoto
Published by CMX
Rating: Mature (18+)

A young girl named Aiko awakens after witnessing her parents brutal murder at the hands of an inhuman beast called a Chimera, to find that her left arm has been altered by the experience. Picked from the hospital by the shadowy organization known as Atheos, Aiko is given a choice. Aid them in battling, capturing and studying the Chimera, or become a test subject herself. Can Aiko survive the battles with the Chimeras? Where do they come from? What is Atheos? And why does her left arm seem to be constructed of Chimera cells? The dark, grim series of Variante holds the answers!

This is not a happy series. Right from the get go things are grim with the slaughter of Aiko’s family and the weirdness of her left arm. Aiko spends a good chunk of the first volume in tears, being miserable and lonely, and basically wanting to die. It’s kind of understandable considering all the insanely horrible things that happen to her. Thankfully she gets a bit more proactive in the subsequent volumes, but she never quite takes control of the situation in the way one would hope. Instead she essentially allows herself to be used as a weapon to battle the Chimeras, trying to convince herself that this is a reason for living while crushing on one of her captors, an investigator known as Sudo. The reason for this is pretty easy, while everyone else treats her like a living weapon or a subject for experimentation, or even something to be feared, Sudo’s the only one who treats her like a person and who doesn’t want her to die. The reasons for this are many and ultimately ties into an ugly head band he wears all the time.

Of course there are also dozens of mysteries and twists, most of them coming in the final two volumes: the secret behind Atheos, what’s up with Aiko’s arm, why Sudo always wears that head band, and why he cares about what happens to Aiko so much. All of those questions, plus mysteries that were so deeply hidden they seemingly come out of nowhere, are all answered by the final climatic volume. Sadly the ultimate end is yet another downer!

Sugimoto’s art is actually pretty good. There’s a nice mixture of cross-hatching and toning that works well here, giving the artwork a unique feel to it that helps convey the rather bleak world of the series. The designs of the Chimeras and Aiko’s left arm are very organic looking, perhaps a bit too organic–at times it can be difficult to differentiate various parts and bits of their anatomy. They tend to look like flesh grown willy-nilly at times, or perhaps cancerously, with large bumpy flesh, flesh stretching like a bats wing, mouths where there shouldn’t be any, that kind of thing. They’re certainly weird looking and freaky. Sugimoto also does a fantastic job at the scenes of carnage that fill the book. Bodies flayed and dismembered, rooms turned to rubble, destroyed vehicles and the like, all look really amazing here. The action scenes are few and far between which leaves a lot of the character interaction and various mysteries to carry the book, and thankfully Sugimoto’s artwork works there as well. While the anatomy at times can look a little bit off, Sugimoto does a very good job at getting characters emotional states across via their facial expressions. You can practically see Aiko’s lip trembling at times.

It’s a hard series to recommend because it’s quite a downer. Aiko just has one horrible thing happen to her after another, especially in the first volume. It really got to a point where I was muttering, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” to myself at times. After the depressing first volume it does pick up a bit, but it’s still not exactly a fun, happy adventure by any means. Horror fans might enjoy it, though the angst factor is kind of high and that could be turn off for many.

All four volumes of Variante are available now.