The Fall 2023 Manga Guide

Glitch

What's It About? 

Minato notices something strange about their new town on their very first day of school when they witness an eerie shadow. Together with their little sister, Akira, and their new friends, they set out to investigate what's behind the bizarre visions plaguing them.

Glitch features art and story by Shima Shinya. The English translation is by Eleanor Summers and lettered by Abigail Blackman. Published by Yen Press (September 19, 2023).

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

It's hard not to have high expectations of anything Shima Shinya creates after Lost Lad London because that series was excellent. Glitch looks like it's also following in its footsteps, but this first volume is primarily set up. When Minato and their sister Akira move with their mother Noe to Touka-cho, Minato immediately notices strange, pixilated forms in the air. Sometimes, they look like random lines, but others seem to cloak recognizable shapes, like a giant moose they see one day on the way home from the store. Meanwhile, Akira doesn't necessarily see those, but she one night surprises a strange little creature with four arms that looks like a Minion outside her window. She and her new friends decide to investigate, and Minato is roped in, not entirely unwillingly.

The question at the heart of the story is what on earth is going on in Touka-cho. The locals are primarily used to it – no one bats an eye at the person who runs the corner store, who has a collection of wings instead of a head, and whether or not you can see “Shadows” determines your social group at school. Akira and Minato coming to town is what gets Akira's new friends interested in exploring the phenomenon, which implies that what looks strange to the new kids is just normal to the people who have been in town for a while. The preview for the next volume implies that, like Lost Lad London, this will eventually become a look at what it means to be Other or an outsider, although this volume doesn't cover that in any specific way.

We can see it being set up, though. Minato uses they/them pronouns and is referred to as Akira's sibling rather than by a gendered term, and while I'd hope that no one will get upset by that, they probably will. Similarly, Minato and Akira have an unconventional relationship with their mother – they call her by her first name (followed by -san), and on their way into town, Noe tells Minato that they don't have to go to school if they don't like it, which may imply that their pronouns have gotten some flak before. It's also mentioned that the move to Touka-cho was a family decision, which also seems like it could be significant. The addition of Hirata, the little person with all the arms, to the cast also opens the door to questions of human versus nonhuman and the idea of parallel worlds since Hirata notes that he's a visitor from another world who was investigating the Shadows (called Glitches in his world) and somehow ended up in Touka-cho.

The volume is deceptively light on the plot. It becomes more interesting as you think about it and pick up on the breadcrumbs that have been lightly sown throughout the story. In any case, it's worth giving this a second look because this is a creator worth trusting to tell a story that, while it might not be something new, will still make us think about how the world works.

Christopher Farris

Rating:

With the often-effective setup of a small-town supernatural mystery and a distinguishing art style, Glitch seems like it might be a good time at first glance. The opening full-color pages detailing a deliberately paced drive into the characters' new home inspire interest. I couldn't help but be charmed by relating to main character Minato's complete lack of direction since I suffer from the same affliction. We slowly step with these characters into the lightly increasing, languid weirdness of Touka-cho, knowingly wry dialogue setting up the sprinkling of these sci-fi furnishings. "Am I having a stroke?" would be the question I asked if I caught glitchy apparitions manifesting in front of me on my first day at a new school.

However, some grounded relatability in reactions and an initial sense of incremental pacing can't be enough on their own to draw us fully into this kind of mystery, and this first volume of Glitch doesn't try to do much more than that for most of it. Now and then, a supernatural element will appear to be questioned, or pointedly unquestioned, per the story's purposes. So we get obliquely greeted by a wing-faced shopkeeper or see the eventually formed investigation team go looking for some tiny, mysterious creature. The focus on unremarkably observing the remarkable lets Glitch play with one slightly salient point about these cryptic entities still being people and, thus, the importance of being courteous. But apart from those asides that feel few and far between, there's not much else on display.

Part of the problem is what would typically fill out the spaces between breakthroughs in a story like this, the atmosphere, isn't present. Touka-cho has almost no sense of place or identity, rendered as simple squares and shapes of buildings with some occasional greenery to break it up. The most distinguishing feature is a "forest" we're mainly just told about, which appears as a lump of vague trees visible from afar. The scale of things like the glitchy deer apparition that disturbs Minato is underplayed because the panels and pages stay rigidly oversimplified in presenting it. It all makes for a slow burn that doesn't work because there's virtually nothing to take in while we're waiting. All we get are answers to some of the mysteries, plus a bit of escalating tension, dropped on us and the characters in the last few pages, as too little, too late.