By Moto Hagio. Released in Japan as “Barbara Ikai” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine flowers. Released in North America by Fantagraphics. Translated by Matt Thorn.

The second and final volume of Otherworld Barbara has a lot less actual Barbara in it, but that doesn’t make it any less strange. We don’t see as much of the city in Aoba and Dr. Watarai’s dreams because their own current reality is far too busy. We get a lot more revelations regarding Johannes, the guru who turns out to be responsible for a great deal of the plot. We find that Akemi, Dr. Watarai’s ex-wife, is more than simply “slightly hysterical” as I said in my last review, but borders on genuinely disturbed. And various events that seemed to be happening on Barbara, or on Mars, overlap with other events happening on Earth, so that by the end we have an emotionally rewarding but logically befuddling series of reunions. But it’s fine, because the emotional payoff is what you want here.

Despite all of the immortality research, past lives discussion, and reincarnation theories that pop up in this book, at heart it remains about Dr. Watarai’s awkward yet heartfelt efforts to bond with his son Kariya. He’s not very good at it, and Kariya is also not very good at accepting his father, and the tension between them feels very real. Kariya has several forces pulling at him here, none more so than the dream spectre of Aoba, who urges cannibalism without really going into detail about why it’s such a good idea. And then there’s the question of whether Dr. Watarai is Kariya’s real father – Akemi said he was, but she’s backtracking now, and saying “I did DNA tests that I totally didn’t fake honest” is not really the best reassurance. As it turns out, there really *is* something to the whole “eating hearts” thing, though fortunately we don’t have to go quite that far.

So much of Otherworld Barbara relies on being pulled along by the mangaka without asking too many questions, and it’s actually rather exhilarating. I’m sure that if I sat down and reread the entire series in one gulp most of it would make sense, but I am not actually sure I want to do that. There’s a certain joy involved in being just as confused as everyone else as to what’s actually going on, why Johannes is a young handsome middle-aged man but also an old guy who never leaves his room; why Kariya and Taka seem to swap bodies and lives, and what happened to Laika’s parents, which I admit caused me to say “Oh, come ON”, so that may have been one too many trips to the well. The art also serves the title well, being sensible and direct when it needs to be but gorgeous and evocative when hitting high emotional moments. The faces in particular stay with you, particularly Akemi’s 57 varieties of anger and rage.

Mostly, though, Otherworld Barbara makes me long for more works by Moto Hagio. I want to be pulled along by her as she lays out another story again. This, Heart of Thomas and A Drunken Dream just aren’t enough. What about a They Were Eleven rescue? Or A Cruel God Reigns? I bet Fantagraphics could pull off Marginal, it’s short and offbeat enough for them. Basically what I’m saying is, I think I’m addicted to this author. You should be too.

By Moto Hagio. Released in Japan as “Barbara Ikai” by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine flowers. Released in North America by Fantagraphics. Translated by Matt Thorn.

For many readers, no review is necessary – just seeing the words “Moto Hagio” on the cover will make this a must-buy. But for those of you who have not yet been captivated by one of Japan’s premier artists, let me assure you that this first omnibus volume of Otherworld Barbara is absolutely worth the extra expense of a hefty hardcover. At times melancholy, amusing, heartbreaking and terrifying, it’s a trip through the senses, as with Hagio’s other work that’s recently come out over here (A Drunken Dream). This has the added benefit of being a complete story, and so you can see how she sets up various plot points and then allows them to sit percolating until they can be used again to devastating effect.

I was faked out at first, I admit. We’re introduced to an odd fantasy hybrid of a world, where a little girl who has difficulty flying like her friends do has happy fun adventures, but right away we see that Aoba is odd – eating the book gives it away if nothing else. It’s an odd hybrid of Peter Pan-style fantasy and reality, as there are several quasi-connections with the Tokyo we know. Then all of a sudden we’re away from that, and following the story of Dr. Watarai, a man whose job it is to enter other people’s dreams, and the troubled relationship he has with his teenage son Kiriya, who is a teenage boy in so many ways. I had assumed that the manga would now shift back and forth between the two “worlds”, but no, we don’t go back to the fantasy world till the second half of the book, where it becomes far more relevant – and creepy.

The fantasy stuff is excellent, but the book really shines when getting involved in the interpersonal relationships Dr. Watarai has with everyone from his bitter, slightly hysterical ex-wife to a somewhat overenthusiastic young protege. His fractured relationship with his son feels very real, especially as there are no good, easy fixes. Kiriya is also dealing with difficult times, as aside from his father he’s being courted – well, stalked to a degree – by a classmate, and also dreaming of Dr. Watarai’s latest patient, a woman who’s been in a coma for years ever since a devastating accident involving her parents. Where the two worlds collide is that this woman is named Aoba, and is clearly the same person as the young girl in the fantasy world.

There’s a lot more going on here, including age regression that almost turns into personality overlay, deadly psychic tornados, terrifying killer dolls, and a seeming suicide that makes you go back to the title page for the chapter and say “Really? You really went there?”. It’s definitely not a book for kids. But there’s so much going on here – in plot, which the reader figures out at the same time as the characters do, and in mood, which is always my go-to reason to read Hagio’s manga. things promise to get a lot more complex for the second and final book, as we also find out about a connection to Mars, and a sinister conspiracy led by a not-so-noble priest. If you enjoyed manga that rewards endless rereads with both its art and style, you can’t go wrong with Otherworld Barbara.