Me: Hey! I HAVE to do another one, the fourth and final book came today and I promised myself when I finished the series I'd do a review on it! So shut your cake hole!
Ahem. Welcome to my detailed analysis and review of all four volumes of the manga, Return to the Labyrinth. This blog post will be about volume 1. I'll try and burn out all four of them tonight, but no guarantees.
FWA?! Yes, my dear Hermiones, it's true. There is indeed a manga series that is supposed to take place after the events of the movie. Now you'd think, due to my love of manga and my euphoric obsession with Labyrinth, that nothing would please me more than this. However, after the disappointment from the graphic novel version of Percy Jackson (great dialogue and story, TERRIBLE ART) I was a little more guarded about this. Especially cuz I couldn't freaking find ANYTHING on the internet about the series. No scanlations. The wikipedia entries are sparse and only go the the third volume. It seemed that Labyrinth fans were content to ignore it and pretend it never happened or mock it viciously. So I resigned myself--I had to buy these suckers.
Avast! Spoilers ahead!!!
Return to Labyrinth Volume 1
Ok, the first thing about volume 1 is holy bejesus is the cover art beautiful. I was super excited when I saw it. Sooo lovely! Shojo and yet fantastical, beautiful but with strong colors, and hot holy hell did Kouyu Shurei do a lovely job drawing Jareth.
Then I opened it.
Um...what? Why is Jareth wearing black/red/brightly colored lipstick?! Jareth would never wear lipstick!
Avlbane: What do you call that stuff he wore on his lips in the ballroom scene of the movie?!
Me: Peach shimmer lipgloss. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Anway, as you can see, there is a cover artist, which is Kouyu Shurei and the main artist, which is Chris Lie. I was seriously annoyed at this at first--when someone grabs this, they'll be expecting the beautiful, clearly better art of Shurei and instead get an icky shonen-y style that looks to be more at home with a sci-fi setting than a fantasy setting. Lie gets a little better--but he never does draw women very well and the only real thing I can commend him on are his portrayals of the goblins.
Also, scroll up for a second. See that bespectacled person that looks like a guy that Toby is saying goodbye to? That would be Sarah.
Yeah.
Ok, so the manga starts with basically a recap of the movie. Sarah wishes away her brother, Goblin King gives her 13 hours to solve the Labyrinth, etc etc. The recap ends with the statement that the Goblin King never troubled Sarah again. "Her brother, however, was not so lucky..."
We cut to a scene with fourteen-year old Toby, who is the lead in the school play. He flubs up a line, screws up his blocking, and gets so frustrated, he wishes that the play would end already.
We're already off to a bad start. Surely Sarah would have taught her brother the importance of BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.
A random sandbag knocks out one of the actors, two of the lights break which cause a fire. We cut to the audience who are all screaming in fear except one guy who looks pretty at ease OH OH IS THAT JARETH?!?!
Even if he's drawn funky, I still love to see him!
He doesn't stick around. Sigh. Sarah shows up and takes Toby home. Sarah is drawn very mousily, almost homely. This doesn't make sense because if anyone has ever seen grown-up Jennifer Connelly, the woman is beautiful. Fortunately, there is a reason for her icky appearance, which we find out later.
So Sarah fixes Toby something to eat and they talk about the play, and Sarah comments on how she used to love acting. Toby asks why she quit, and she says she 'grew up.'
Uhhh...this does not sound like the girl who was perfectly content to stroll around parks in medieval gowns reciting lines from her favorite books and plays who we met in the movie...
Sarah leaves, Toby goes upstairs to play a computer game involving goblins. I am extremely bored.
Here comes one of my first legitimate gripes about the manga. Its portrayal of Karen, Toby's mother and Sarah's stepmother. In the movie, Karen is not a horrible, terrible, emotionally abusive mother. She scolds Sarah from coming home an hour late. She exasperatedly tries to have a reasonable discussion with Sarah who flips out like the drama queen she is and throws a tantrum. She tells Sarah's father in a hurt and upset tone, "She treats me like a wicked stepmother in a fairy story no matter what I do!" These are not marks of a mean and nasty person.
Now we go to manga Karen. Manga Karen is mean, derisive, and just a generally unpleasant person. She snaps at Toby, is completely unsympathetic to the disaster of a play that Toby just suffered through (and it occurs to me that she wasn't even AT her son's play...) and is a genuine bitch. This annoys me GREATLY. Nowhere in the movie was it ever stated or shown that Karen was a mean person. In the one fight she had with Sarah, it was clear Sarah was more in the wrong than Karen, especially as Sarah was acting like a petulant child.
Anyway, we continue. Toby makes another stupid wish at school while an owl watches from a window (Hi Jareth!) and is caught accidentally cheating on a test. He is sent to the guidance counselor's office where who do we meet, but Jareth who is posing as the counselor! Ha ha!
...he's drawn really weird. The real Jareth would look sooo much hotter in a suit.
Plus Manga Jareth is wearing old lady glasses.
They discuss all the bad luck that's happened to Toby over the course of his life (all of which stemmed from a stupid wish). Toby whines that his life sucks, Jareth gets all offended that Toby isn't eternally grateful for granting his wishes (sound familiar?) and then promptly jumps out the window.
Why does he jump out the window? ...I don't know.
We go to a new scene where we see a queen-type woman lounging on a throne. A tiny robot pours something into a cup, she glances into it, and I believe makes something akin an evil laugh. Ladies and gentleman, I believe we've met our villain. She calls a henchman named Esker to 'pay a visit' to Toby.
At this point, my inner Jareth/Sarah fangirl is impatient. Shush, fangirl, you're going to have to wait for a while.
Okay, so bad stuff CONTINUES to happen to Toby, and then a goblin steals his history homework and he chases after it.
A goblin stole his history homework? I think I'm going to try that one on my History 152 professor. Although this may explain why my socks keep going missing...
So you guessed it, by chasing the goblin through his closet Toby winds up in the Labyrinth. He then meets a wingless fairy named Hana who is riding...something that appears to be Ludo's species...a yeti? Hana explains how she lost her wings which is too boring for me to relate and Toby gets the bright idea of climbing the Labyrinth walls to solve it that way.
I'm not going to slight him this, because honestly, I'd have tried the same thing. It doesn't work though, naturally, the wall pretty much kicks his ass. Boy, it must suck to lose to a wall. We then get a random conversation with a 'bricklayer' goblin that's supposed to be reminiscent of Sarah's first conversation with Hoggle but really is super tedious. Toby enters the Labyrinth.
Cut to Esker the minion, who unleashes some kinda weird water beast to track down Toby.
Cut to Toby who has found the goblin that stole his homework. The goblin is named Skub and is kind of cute. Skub and Toby make friends. The group of them trot around some more in the Labyrinth and then the water beasty thing attacks them. Toby defeats it...somehow...I dunno, it was kind of confusing, he like led it into mud? Whatever, GET TO JARETH ALREADY, I'M BORED. The captain of the guard, Candlewic, finds them and arrests Toby.
Okay, new character. A girl(?) named Moppet, who wakes up, puts on a goblin mask and goes about her day. She apparently is a servant of the mayor...wait, since when does the Goblin City need a mayor? Don't they already have a king? Jareth does not strike me as the type to share power...
Moppet's life kind of sucks. But she runs into Sir Didymus! Hey Sir Didymus! Who is approximately there for seven panels. Yay.
And then FINALLY we get to Jareth who is busy being sexy on his throne. Well, as sexy as he can be the way he's drawn. He's playing with his crystals (every time you see a DING, insert 'that's what she said. DING.) and he drops one and it shatters. He looks sad. Must be sad losing one of your balls. (DING.) Moppet delivers a letter, he gives her a letter to send back, we catch a glimpse of his wrist which appears to be burned. Moppet leaves, passes by Candlewic, sighs dreamily over him...
Wait, wait, WAIT, I call bullshit. She just delivered a letter to JARETH and she's sighing over a goblin captain of the guard who appears to be the love child of Andre the Giant and the Incredible Hulk?! WHAT?!
If there was a legitimate plot-related reason for this crush, I could forgive it. But ESPECIALLY when we find out Moppet's backstory, it makes absolutely no sense. Sigh.
Geez, she even accidentally bumps into Jareth whilst drooling over Candlewic and quickly hurries off. You have JARETH right behind you and you're crushing on Candlewic? What?!?!
Stupid, stupid, STUPID.
Back to Toby, who is in goblin jail. There he meets Moppet, whose duties apparently include feeding the prisoners. ...K. He gets tried by a goblin jury and is found guilty by the mayor Spittledrum. Sentence is death. Moppet interrupts the hearing by saying that Spittledrum has a visitor, and lo and behold, it's Jareth! Thank God, every time he's not in the scene I start losing consciousness due to sheer boredom. Jareth says casually that he wants the boy Spittledrum arrested sent to his castle. Spittledrum, who just sentenced Toby to death, sputters a bit, and Jareth comments airily that if Spittledrum has indeed harmed Toby, the only thing he'd be mayor of is an oubliette.
Spittledrum takes off to stop the execution. I get annoyed cuz Jareth isn't in the scene anymore.
He comes back pretty quickly though, and he and Toby have a proper introduction. They become pretty good chums and Jareth suggests Toby clean up and join him for dinner. Then there's a really weird line.
Jareth: Why don't you clean yourself up and join me and a few guests for dinner? I'll see that you get home by morning. That's not unreasonable, is it?
Toby: I guess that's all right.
Jareth: You can go clean up in there. I'll send for some fresh clothes. Go ahead, I won't peek. *next panel is a creepy smirk*
....
Did Jareth just hit on that fourteen-year-old boy? NOT OKAY!
Inner voice: Course not. He prefers drugging fifteen year old girls with hallucinogenic peaches and hitting on THEM.
Me: Shut up, you.
So then we see all across the kingdom, various inhabitants of the Labyrinth and Goblin City receiving invitations to a ball that Jareth is hosting. Then we cut to the ball sequence, where we several cameos (Didymus, Ludo, Hoggle) we're introduced to our villainess, whose name is Mizumi, and her two daughters Moulin and Drumlin. Then Jareth makes a big announcement that he's retiring and his new heir is...wait for it...Toby. GASP.
And so ends volume 1.
Things I liked: The many, MANY references to the original movie, one of the Dark Crystal, and even the fandom as a whole. Toby commenting on the tightness of the pants he's given when he changes. The attempt at making an original, alternate story to the original Labyrinth.
Things I disliked: The art as a whole. The portrayal of Jareth...this will be more apparent as we go on. Y'all should know, David Bowie played a HUGE role in designing Jareth. He commented that it was always his impression that Jareth was rather reluctantly the ruler of the Labyrinth, and would probably be a lot happier in Soho, London or Brooklyn. He had several ideas about Jareth which Brian Froud and Jim Henson incorporated. This portrayal of Jareth is probably the most common in fanfics and webcomics, since there's so much respect for Mr. Bowie. I feel the manga series really minimized Bowie's contributions to Jareth. I'll explain more as the backstory (manga version at least) for Jareth is revealed.
Posting review of volume 2 tomorrow! Stay tuned!
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