130 - Petshop of Horrors vol. 5

A poignant volume that introduces a new character to the lore and explores feelings around death and childhood. And it may come as no surprise that even a horror Shoujo manga somehow has to reference ballet, we all seen Black Swan right? Skip plot summaries @ 6:11

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130: Petshop of Horrors vol. 5

By Akino Matsuri

Translation by Tomoharu Iwo and James Lucas Jones

Lettering by Nunu Ngien

In the first chapter, ‘Dual’ a congressman appears to D asking for the legendary Kirin. At first D denies the existence of such a creature deeming it as a myth, but in truth it is the Kirin who chooses the owner. The Kirin can make the dreams of its owner come true, granting them great power but at an extreme cost. In the end the Kirin chooses the congressman’s aide/assistant and so he makes the greatest sacrifice.

In ‘Day Nursery’ we are introduced to Leon Orcot’s little brother, named Christopher, a mute child who stays at the Petshop under D’s care. It comes as a surprise when Christopher sees the pets as humanoids, the same as D and can converse with them telepathically. Christopher has survivor’s guilt due to his mom dying from a complicated pregnancy and a feeling of being unloved from his brother Leon. Yet he finds a mother figure in the elderly black bird, Madame Sultana. On the day that Leon is injured he has a near death experience where he dreams of his mother who coincidentally looks like Sultana, or at least the way Christopher sees Sultana. In this realm both Leon and his mother talk about Christopher. On the same day Madame Sultana dies and D can sense the disturbance in the air. Soon enough Leon is apprehensive to be sending Christopher to a specialist school, his stoic nature hides it, but he gives his little brother a hug before he drops him off.

Continued in ‘Darling’ Christopher brings in a missing runaway Cat with emerald green eyes and a necklace for a collar, the cat feeling as if she is unloved and only valued for her necklace. The necklace being crown jewels and whomsoever wins the affection of the cat is owner of the jewels and in turn the next heir to the throne. With the cat choosing to stay with D she wishes for a life of a commoner and D trims her fur/ hair at her request, he then claims sovereignty due to possessing the necklace and holds the cat ransom. However, D’s plan is to see if the rightful prince Saleem can recognise their cat. But like how a prince recognised Cinderalla, so does the prince recognise his cat. D sees how much the cat and the prince love each other and so he gives the necklace back. Christopher however gets his first taste of jealousy.

The last chapter of this volume reads a lot like, Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. Jeanne Lecroix, jealous of not being able to play the lead role of Swan Lake spends the afternoon at D’s pet shop. There he shows her many of his pets all performing for her, including a bloody cockfight. Through comparing the performance with her abilities, she feels inadequate. Therefore, D gifts her a blade, telling her that with it she will achieve her desire. Later D takes detective Leon to see Swan Lake and we find out that Jeanne has torn apart her rival’s black swan costume, it is then decided that Jeanne will play the black swan and her rival Dominique will play the white swan. By the end of the second act Jeanne gets an ovation and it becomes clear that she is wanted for the third act, However Jeanne goes missing, having won the heart of her prince co-star she is never seen again after that performance.

Context:

·       In Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake the role of both the black swan and the white swan is conventionally played by the same person. This is why in the chapter ‘Dance’ Jeanne is jealous of Dominique since it is a dual character role.

·       Depending on the translation you are reading, the country that Saleem is prince of is either fictional or based on the country of Yemen.

Historical, scientific, and cultural references:

·       A Kirin (Qilin) is based on Chinese mythology, often mistaken for a giraffe in eastern languages but can also be mistaken for a Shishi in the west, the mythical Chinese lion like dog. A Kirin is more like a deer mixed with a dragon in that it has hooves and antlers along with scales. If someone from the Ming dynasty saw a giraffe then they may have mistaken it for a Kirin. They even share the same name.

·       Madame Sultana is a Myna, which is a Starling bird native to India, it can talk like a parrot, even going for lower frequencies of speech than the average parrot. Although symbolically it is more representative of a crow in how it is a pomgeist or conduit for the deceased.

·       The Cat in the chapter ‘Darling’ is named Pandora. It means “all giving” and “gifted” named from the Greek creationist myth.

·       The Dying Swan solo dance was created by Mikhail Fokine for Camille Saint-Saëns's ‘The Swan’ for the Ballerina Anna Pavlova, having premiered in 1907 as a special occasion piece, It is inspired by the Alfred Tennyson poem of the same name and of course it would be adapted and used for future Swan Lake performances. In the words of Fokine's granddaughter, Isabelle: "The Dying Swan does not make enormous technical demands, but rather enormous artistic ones because every movement and every gesture should signify a different experience, which is emerging from someone who is attempting to escape death."

·       La Syphide is a dance original choreographed by Filipo Taglioni in 1833 but

Sadly, the 1836 August Bournonville choreography is the only one to have survived, since Bournonville did not have the rights to the original music thus he created a new version of the dance. It is not to be confused with the 1909 ballet Les Sylphides, another ballet involving a mythical sylph. A Sylph being a spirit of the air.

·       “Pas de deux” is a ballet term for a dance duet. Literally translated from French as “Step of two”

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