Featured image by blamspam.
I find myself still slowly gathering volumes of Saint Tail, and it won’t be long now until I’ve finished the manga, though the anime still eludes me. I thought some Saint Tail art would be appropriate.
Tag: Saint Tail
Manga Review: ‘Saint Tail’
On a mission from God.
Saint Tail, vols. 1 and 2, written and illustrated by Megumi Tachikawa. Published in Japan by Kodansha Ltd., 1995. Translated by Anita Sengupta. Tokyopop, 2001.
I was unable to complete this in time for Easter Sunday, but, fortunately, Easter is fifty days. So here we go.
The kaitou, or thief, is such a popular figure in Japanese pop culture that kaitou may be considered its own genre. This is probably thanks in large part to the wildly successful Lupin III franchise, which is written to be a sequel of sorts to the stories of Arsène Lupin by Maurice Leblanc. Magical girls had crossed paths with gentleman thieves in franchises such as Minky Momo and Sailor Moon, so a magical girl who is also a gentleman thief—or lady thief, rather—is an obvious next step.
What is perhaps not so obvious is that the magical girl lady thief should be a devout Catholic who steals in service to God, but such is the premise of Saint Tail, and the basic concept of Saint Tail also got recycled, but given a hard twist, in Phantom Thief Jeanne, which we’ll discuss in a later post. Continue reading “Manga Review: ‘Saint Tail’”
Holy Saturday
God is dead.
I’m Catholic, in case that wasn’t obvious, and we’re now in the midst of the Easter Triduum. The fifty days of Easter begin tonight with the Vigil.
Last year, in Deus ex Magical Girl fashion, we celebrated Easter with the egg-obsessed Shugo Chara. This year, I intend to keep that tradition alive by celebrating with the pseudo-Christian magical girl story Saint Tail, which I think I’m finally ready to review, just in time for Easter. Stay tuned.
Slow-Rolling ‘Saint Tail’
I’m sorry there has been little in the way of meaningful content here, but I’m coming toward the end of my final term of a master’s program. On Star Wars Day, May the 4th, I’m free … sort of. Or at least I’m free of school. That might not mean more time for blogging, though, at least until I’m more gainfully employed and settled.
So, anyway, in case you’re wondering if I’m just over here binge-watching The Vision of Escaflowne, the answer is, “I wish.” Actually, I haven’t watched that much of it, eager though I am, because I haven’t had the time.
I’ve promised reviews of Saint Tail and Phantom Thief Jeanne, the two magical girl stories about religiously motivated cat burglars. The latter is readily available thanks to a re-translation and re-release from Viz in 2014, but the former is, alas, quite difficult to acquire: it’s one of those early post-Sailor Moon titles, like Corrector Yui or Wedding Peach or Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, many of which subsequently became obscure. I’ve been defeated in my attempt to get DVDs of the Saint Tail anime, and the manga is coming to me slowly, piecemeal. I just got word of another volume that has arrived for me, so I should have it by the end of tomorrow.
Saint Tail a pleasant little title; reading it is like snuggling into a warm blanket. It’s not exactly deep or demanding, but it’s sweet without being cloying. The apparently sincere religious devotion of its Catholic protagonists is actually quite well handled even though the manga-ka wrote in complete ignorance (you’ll find this title listed under “Nuns are Mikos” on TVTropes).
I’ll probably have to move ahead with the discussion even without getting the whole series. As I understand it, Saint Tail hews closely to its formula and doesn’t offer any big surprises, so I’m probably safe giving it a review of sorts if I don’t go into too much detail.
I’ve already penned a draft of that review, but I was waiting for more material before I hit “publish.” It might be up in the next few days.
New Reviews are Coming!
Featured image: “Saint Tail” by SubaruSumeragi
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m finishing up a graduate program, which is why the posting is infrequent here, but I haven’t forgotten about you.
I am still slowly working on cleaning up the blog and organizing the content. I removed a “currently reading” widget that I never kept updated, but replaced it with one from Goodreads, which will be easier for me to keep current, since I simply have to remember to scan book covers with my phone. I’m still planning to give fiction, essays, and reviews their own pages with a menu at the top, so stay tuned for that as well. Leave comments on any other features you want to see, or recommendations for layout.
Also, since a reader recently asked for a discussion of Christian-themed magical girls, I am currently looking into Saint Tail and Phantom Thief Jeanne, the two Christian magical girl cat burglars who steal for Jesus. As I frequently mention here, works in the magical girl genre often come in pairs: someone produces something with a certain theme, and someone else replies by taking that theme and reversing it. Thus, Phantom Thief Jeanne can be interpreted as a deconstruction of Saint Tail, and it also features a plot twist that makes it a precursor of Puella Magi Madoka Magica.
But we’ll get to all that later. Soon. I promise.