The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

Double

What's It About? 

Yuujin Kamoshima and Takara Takarada are fellow actors in the same theater troupe who live next door to one another, with similar day to day lives.

Though they aren't exactly close friends, when Yuujin is cast as Takara's Double, he sees first hand his extraordinary acting skills and is blown away. From that moment on, he's determined to help him succeed and support him in his dream of becoming a world renowned actor, even if Yuujin has to be in his shadow. But as the acting world begins to take notice, that's easier said than done... (from Barnes & Noble)

Double is drawn and scripted by Ayako Noda and Tokyopop will release its first volume on January 25, 2022

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Double is an interesting beast. It features a close, almost symbiotic friendship between two men, but it doesn't appear to be BL; in fact, creator Ayako Noda typically publishes BL under a different name, Niboshiko Arai. It's about actors, and each chapter is named after a famous production, ranging from Shakespeare's As You Like It to the TV show Happy Days to Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist play No Exit (Huis Clos) – but if you dig down deeper into the story, it's not really about actors at all. It's about acting, yes, but more than that it's about how sometimes being yourself is the hardest thing except maybe understanding yourself and your place in the world around you – and if that's possible without the person you most depend upon.

The two main characters are Takara and Yuujin. The two met seven years ago, when Takara, despondently trying to fit in at a job he struggled with, stopped in to see a play Yuujin was performing in. Captivated by Yuujin's performance, Takara begs to be allowed to act with him…but he has to beg in writing, because he's so overwhelmed that he's unable to speak. Eventually Takara finds success as an actor, even more than Yuujin, but that's largely thanks to Yuujin, who takes on the role of manager and coach to help Takara succeed. By the time the story begins, the two have become almost two halves of a whole, with Takara completely dependent on Yuujin's guidance if he's to pull off any of his roles.

Whether it's intentional or not, there's a very strong suggestion that Takara has some sort of disorder or disability along the lines of ASD that makes it very difficult for him to cope with strangers, changes, and things being other than he has been led to expect. He's unable to process scripts by reading them (but he can memorize lines he's heard) and needs to be guided through every step of the character creation process. Once he knows who and what the character is supposed to be, he's golden, but he lacks the ability to interpret the lines by himself in order to come up with a way to play the character. It's not really method acting, per se, although when he's on set it can look that way. It's just that he doesn't function in the way that people expect him to, and his skilled acting makes people believe that he's someone more like their conception of “normal.”

This leads to a lot of tension between people who want Takara to be someone he's not and Takara himself. Or at least, it would were Takara able to process tension between people, which he's not. When he's scouted by an agent, she's confused and later aghast at how codependent he is on Yuujin, and the volume ends with her wondering if the two can even be separated anymore. Yuujin is at this point basically half of Takara's performance, the director of how Takara acts both on stage and off. It's unclear how aware of this Takara is, and because this is billed as drama rather than some other genre, there's a sort of sinister edge to things. It's painful to see Takara forced out of his comfort zone, but it's also alarming to see how little people on the outside understand how his relationship with Yuujin keeps him afloat. Double definitely isn't the book I assumed it was going to be – I think it may be something much darker and possibly better.

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Caitlin Moore

Rating:

The idea of genius or some kind of exceptional innate talent is a popular topic in fiction, especially ones about performing. It's easy to see why. It balances audiences' twin, often opposing desires for a story to offer relatability and for it to show them lives and experiences other than their own. There's something magical about how actors morph and shift with every role, becoming different people before our very eyes, how there are people in the world we just can't seem to look away from while others disappear easily into the background. It's why the whole concept of celebrity exists. The manga Double takes a look at genius in a particularly unique and difficult-to-harness form.

I'm not here to debate the validity of innate talent vs. learned skill, or even whether talent exists, but I will say that in order to get into Double, you have to buy wholeheartedly into the idea of talent. After all, that's the only explanation for protagonist Takara Takarada's acting ability. He fully disappears into whatever role he's given, delivering Shakespearean monologues with precision and grace. His talent only works, however, as long as his friend and roommate Yuujin is there to assist him. Yuujin, whose name means “friend” and is a rather on-the-nose indicator of his destiny to be a supporting character in his own life, has decided to sublimate his own career in favor of propping up Takara's talent. In addition to giving Takara guidance on his performances and helping him find the character, he cooks, cleans, and manages Takara's schedule, basically acting as his personal assistant or spouse. After reading this volume, it really came as no surprise that Ayako Noda has written a number of BL manga.

Even if Double isn't BL – and I have no idea whether it is or not, just that it's being published in a josei magazine rather than one devoted specifically to BL – what Takara and Yuujin have is a recipe for a fraught relationship, especially as Takara becomes increasingly successful and has other people who are actually paid to support him, and as Yuujin watches his partner achieve greater success in the art they're both passionate about. Although their relationship is a bit hard to swallow, with such clearly defined and unequal roles, Yano sells it enough that I'm interested in seeing how it evolves alongside Takara's career.

The artwork is considerably different from most anime and manga, with human proportions and big noses in place of the saucer-sized eyes we've come to expect. The realism is balanced out by a kind of sketchy rawness, with characters going off-model depending on their emotional state, giving it a sense of life and motion. At times, it's easy to see how strikingly attractive Takara is; other times, his eyes bulge over a beaky nose and he looks downright bizarre. However, it works, and while this art style will likely keep Double niche at best among US fans, it's worth seeking out for those who appreciate it.