Wayward Vol. 1: String Theory Review

Review:
Wayward is a beautifully drawn and well written take of a young girl who at first thought her biggest problem was adjusting to culture shock when she moved to Japan to live with her mother. When she's in her mother's homeland, half-Irish half-Japanese Rori Lane discovers she can see these strange energy ribbons that lead her to strange and usually dangerous supernatural incidents.

The story starts out at a steady pace introducing Rori and her family situation, her parents are divorced and she leaves her father's home in Ireland, who she doesn't get along with, to live in Japan with her busy mother who has some secrets of her own. Once Rori's powers manifest it leads her to meeting other unusual teenagers - a hyper cat-like girl Ayaname, Shirai the cursed spirit eater, and the mysterious Nikaido with creepy powers - one by one through her powers and discovering that more have been crawling out from the shadows lately. Of course, Rori is the one that has to step-up and take charge which she isn't too sure of herself. After the initial three chapters introducing Rori and her new friends the story plunges into a huge fight and intense surprises. However, the story still flows well and easy to follow with starting out at an good pace focusing on familiarizing readers with the heroes and getting an idea of antagonists they will face as well as leaving on a huge cliffhanger that will bring readers back.

 In Wayward, the characters here are based unsurprisingly based a great deal off of Japanese Folklore. The book is kind and informative in having bios on the creatures in the back educating the reader on the creatures of Japan and their fascinating, though dark history. Concerning Japan and it's culture, the forward of this book by Zack Davidsson - a scholar, writer, and translator of Japanese folklore - praises the book for capturing a true picture of Japan and portraying real characters instead of falling into the trap of Orientalism. Davidsson explains Orientalism as treating Japan as a fictional fantasy land of ninjas, samurais, and so on to seem exotic with out much research or care gone into it. Wayward however is a wonderfully executed exception.

Recommendations:
Wayward is already rated M for Mature readers which no doubt has a lot to do with some of the violence, blood, and F-bombs dropped in the book. There is also a scene of Rori performing self-harm in stressful situation at school by carving the kanji for "Alone" in her arm. The other violence in the book isn't much more graphic sans two deaths that happen however I'd say the book still be a good read for some members of the YA crowd. It's especially a good book to give to Manga fans, especially if you're trying to get them open to Western comics as well as educating people about Japan and some of its interesting mythology.

(Thank you Netgalley for a copy!)