Rumiko Takahashi is probably best known for her more famous, long-running manga series. For my fandom generation, that would be Ranma 1/2, and for many others they probably have more fond memories of Inuyasha. Whether or not either of these is the case for you (or if you’re more a Maison Ikkoku or Urusei Yatsura wild card), you probably have a certain image of her craft in mind. However, like many artists, she has the ability to surprise with her storytelling range.
Came the Mirror & Other Tales is an anthology of Takahashi’s work containing 5 short tales (most of which have some supernatural element) and one bonus autobiographical story about her journey from manga fan to manga artist (which also features a similar story from manga artist Mitsuru Adachi). In the titular story, individuals are chosen to help exorcise evil forces from within other human beings via a mirror that appears on the palms of their hands. The mirror isn’t visible to anyone else. If the marked individual fails to fulfill their duty to a satisfactory degree, they’re killed.
The current mirror holder fails due to his propensity to get sick after each exorcism, but rather than dying he’s sent back in time, where he meets one of the prior mirror holders. They then team up to hunt down a teacher who’s been filming students before he has a chance to fight back against the two exorcists.
The other short stories range from the humorous (“With Cat,” in which an old cat possesses a teenage boy and helps him to repair an old friendship) to the humorously-sinister (“Revenge Doll,” in which a manga artist down on his luck comes into possession of a doll that curses others) and all (except for the more mundane “The Star Has a Thousand Faces” and the memoir “My Sweet Sunday Mitsuru Adachi x Rumiko Takahashi”) deal with spooky or supernatural subject matter. They also display the kind of storytelling range that might surprise manga readers who are more used to the long-running and often formulaic mainstream series Takahashi is known for.
If you, like me, don’t have time to read a 50+ volume manga series, and want to keep up with this month’s spooky theme, this is a great compilation to add to your list.
Came the Mirror & Other Tales is available in paperback from VIZ. The first two chapters are also available to read for free on the VIZ Manga app (or if you pay for the app, you can read the entire thing electronically).
