Met this masterpiece again at a local library's used book sale. How come I was able to find this rather obscure manga in suburban Seattle? And it's the original Japanese version! I literally grabbed it upon the sight and rushed to the cashier, and was surprised again that it was priced only 50 cents. Anyway that's how I got this book in my hands again after more than 30 years.You could say the backbone story isn't that compelling. But it's more about... I don't know. It just feels stupid to try

An eerie noir set in a sprawling housing complex, building into a conflagration of battling wills. It's the prior work by the author/illustrator of Akira, and even though I've only seen the film version of that one, it shows, especially in the huge, cinematic confrontation sequences. At its strongest in its contexts: the housing complex is rendered in mind-bogglingly perfect architectural detail, fully conveying the inhuman scale of the place, even as the lives of a huge cast of residents are sk...

Katsuhiro Otomo's precursor of Akira. The combination of mundane and supernatural makes for a really eerie atmosphere, which serves for creating immense tension to the damn great climax. 4 out of 5 stars.

This graphic novel is mad good. The illustration is incredible, drawn in a style that manages to be both painstakingly intricate and wildly frenetic at the same time. The story is instantly engrossing. Set almost entirely in a Ballardian tower block complex, inescapably huge and haunted by the horrors of modern life, this is the place that a cast of troubled souls call home. People are dying here day after day but no one knows why. What follows is a supernatural tale totally devoid of creaking f...

I've spent years trying to track down a physical copy of this book, and finally found one recently. Beautiful artwork, as expected, and a great little story that clearly serves as a warm-up for Akira. Unfortunately, my English edition (Mandarin's 1994 version) is appallingly lettered, with text randomly bunched in corners of speech balloons; SFX and signage translations occasionally placed well away from the required location; and a few pages that are apparently of a different resolution to the

I really enjoyed this book. A series of strange murders leads police to begin investigating what should be your typical apartment building. As the police get closer to finding the killer, they discover that the murders and this building are anything but typical. The books build up to an all out psychic war between two powerful persons, filled with blood and gore and destruction.The plot is fairly simple and there aren't really any big surprises. but the carnage and destruction is so over the top...

Domu: Otomo's Pre-Akira Masterpiece The uncontrollable power of 'Akira' threatens to swallow everything in tentacle range, even it's older sibling, with whom the mega-manga shares it's own dramatis personae of troubled telekinetic characters: DOMU...'Domu', Otomo's first masterpiece, has always been overshadowed by the grandeur of Akira, but both the art and the story display the full range of his creative powers. It's tempting to see it as a 300-page 'test-run' for the 2000+-page magnum

It’s a little bit sad to me that many or even most of the people who know the name Katsuhiro Otomo will likely only know him for his sprawling vision for a post-apocalyptic Neo Tokyo, as found in Akira. In a way, that’s kind of like saying that it’s sad that most people will only ever know Herman Melville for Moby Dick. That is: it’s not really sad at all and that there is a good reason why the great torrential works are the ones that imprint on the shared cultural experience. There is a reason

Following a parade of suicides in a park-side spread of apartment complexes, an ineffective police investigation fails to detect that the culprit is a shrunken geriatric whose mask of senility hides a very potent command of psychokinesis as well as a sadistic streak. When a young girl with a messy head of hair and equally wild and dangerous psychic abilities moves into a flat with her family, an extravaganza of carnage and mayhem soon follows. Sort of the Japanese answer to David Cronenberg's sc...

To many Otomo's Akira is the absolute swan song of his career--& they would not be wrong. I would find it hard to argue because I too am in awe of it.But my heart belongs to Domu: A Child's Dream. To me, it is Otomo's true masterpiece. It would be the forerunner to Akira--the "shades of things to come" & a glimpse into the imagination that would one day create a graphic novel epic to rival all others. It is a deeply moving piece of work that has inspired me throughout all my creative impulses wh...

If there is anything that I learn about reading mangas, that there is always one title that stands out among the rest from the creator. For me, one of my personal favorite from Katsuhiro Otomo has always been Domu: A Child's Dream.Domu is a simple, gripping dark-tale that was drawn and written in a cinematic way that let your eyes follow panel by panel in such a way how a director intends the audience to see his movie as it was meant to be. It started off with a mystery that leads to murder and

Well this was a deception to me, I had read this book a couple of years ago and I forget the name and most of the history but I was looking forward to re-read it, so when I finally found it I was really happy, but this time it was a disappoint to me, the history fells undeveloped, there are so many characters that end up not having any development or connection, it's just fells like for me is a really incomplete and weak history, the drawing is amazing, I can say that.

It's basically Proto-Akira, good for all the same reasons but generally to a lesser extent: there's less story, less character development, less psychic powers, and less amazing art. A bit greater focus on murder mysteries and other such tense spooky stuff, though, up until towards the end when the espers go all-out.

Yes i have watched the classic anime film 'Akira' directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, based on the 2000-page manga of Otomo.But i encountered 'Domu' thru a true comics review guide (a book) that i got years before and after i watched Akira in the late 1990s.I was blown away by the clean detailed art, not your usual fanfare manga art. Great story too. But what i like best in this volume is the short selection about author/creator. This is a really fine volume from one of the finest artists of the medium...

What can I say about Otomo's Domu - it's quite simply one of the best graphic fictions I have ever read. The art is so meticulously detailed. Each panel reads like a movie still, pushing the narrative along at Otomo's undulating pace. The story - a deceptively simple murder mystery is so subtly revealed, so elegantly told that it reads like visual poetry. Being an artist I've learned much from reading Domu over and over. It's a grand example of the potential comics can reach. Everyone, comics fa...

Maybe there's more to this than I'm seeing but I just thought: Ah, that's it? That was kind of disappointing.

Domu is the story of a little corner of spiraling chaos in an otherwise ordinary neighborhood. It's a clash of opposing forces and their effects on the surrounding community, and a wonderful tale of the extraordinary in the monotony of the everyday.At first a slow creeping mystery, Domu ends in a staggering set piece of destruction and confusion, as seen through a number of different characters, and it's these characters - the heroine, the villain, and the clueless police officers assigned to th...

A friend and colleague who specializes in comics gave me this to read. I’m not very experienced with Japanese manga, so it was helpful to have someone give me a single, self-contained volume (rather than a sprawling series) to get my feet wet. Overall, I found Otomo’s story to be well-constructed and brilliantly illustrated, though I would caution readers against picking up this book if they are sensitive to depictions of violence, especially suicide and violence involving children.Writing/Art:

A short but poignant story. Not quite as horrific as other mangas I've read recently, but still tragic with cool supernatural elements. The artstyle is great, this artist really masters backgrounds ngl.

I read this a long time ago. I read it again yesterday at my book store, ignoring customers and furiously torn between turning pages to see what happens next and marveling at the hyper-detailed environment drawn in every panel: every stone, window, jacket, _everything_ is drawn like some comic version of Orson Welles' deep focus. It makes Otomo's world feel infinite. Everything is visible; everything is detailed. It feels like the story we're focusing on is only one story that's happening—sure,