Ki-oon Editions returns this year with a new time thriller, Man in the window. Erased's rightful successor coming to an end? We tell you more about this series whose first volume was published in April of this year!
Man in the window
Original title : Man in the window
Author : Anajiro (art) Masatoki (scenario)
French publisher : Ki-oon
Original publisher : Square-Enix in Japan
Release date : 13/04/2017
Number of volumes : 3 volumes in Japan, 2 volumes in France
Status : Series completed
Price : 7,90 €
Synopsis :
When 17-year-old Shuhei receives a note from the girl he secretly loves, he can't believe his eyes. Without getting too hopeful, he goes to the meeting place, a squalid alley ending in a cul-de-sac. As stated, he knocks on the last window… And it is a male voice that answers him! Shuhei runs away, but when the stranger calls him by name, he turns around, taken aback. The man knows his identity, as well as all sorts of intimate details about his life. And for good reason: it is his 20-year-old self that stands in front of him! The teenager finds it hard to believe, faced with this antithesis of his childhood ideal. Shaggy, unshaven, looking jaded, the adult Shuhei lives in a dark and dirty room… Obviously, he missed his life. His dreams for the future crumbled, and he sank into despair. It was counting without the discovery of this window, which changes the game: cheating in exams, winning the lottery, everything is possible now! The Shuhei of the future has nothing left to lose, he is ready to do anything to rewrite his past. The temptation is strong, but playing with the wheels of destiny has a price…
Who has never dreamed of changing their past? At 17, Shuhei's daily life is about to take a turn. Asked for a date at the end of an alley, he meets a man who introduces himself as him three years later. The window through which he communicates would therefore open a passage between the past and the future. But in front of the man who comes to him, Shuhei does not accept the truth given to him. How could it have changed so much in just three years? He who aspires to enter Todai to become a doctor discovers a man who is on the edge of the abyss, living in a dump…
Two temporal thrillers have been talked about recently in France: Orange and Erased. However, Man in the window manages to distinguish itself from these two titles by several points. Here, the desire to change the past is purely selfish. Shuhei of the future wants to change his past only to change his condition. For this, he is ready to do much more than the Shuhei of the present, unlike Orange or Erased, the will to change the future comes from the desire to avoid a tragedy that affects those around him. Moreover, the channel of communication between the two eras is also different from the two works. When in Orange the heroine comes to know her future thanks to a letter that comes from the future, Erased is downright the main character who discovers his ability to relive events, which he has already known. Here, it is a window that will serve as an intermediary between the two Shuhei, allowing a real interaction between the two characters.
This first volume lays the foundations on the story: the meeting of the two Shuhei, the one of the present who doubts that of the future and who gradually accepts his existence. Although he is skeptical of the future ahead, he is willing to make changes to avoid the worst, but retains a certain credulity about the Shuhei of the future. He wants his rise to be made by work and not cheating, whether school or otherwise. On the other hand, the Shuhei of the future is ready to do anything to change his existence within reason, he tries to convince himself to act, even if it means going through not very honest means. Only, the past is not easy to change, we must discover the rules that govern temporal change and all that, in the greatest secrecy.
Pleasant to read, this first volume of Man in the window lays its foundations: an interesting plot that is oriented towards personal success, with a main character having more than human reactions. He doesn't believe it right away and that's normal. And although the pitch is simple, the end of the volume reveals an event that may make our hero take a decisive turn.
The second volume of Man in the window will be released at the end of August, but in the meantime you can read an excerpt from the first volume!
