Kaoru Mori draws Emma

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Emma Vol. 9

Emma volumes 8 and 9 collect several filler stories focussing on the secondary and minor characters of the comic. And I do mean minor. The first story of volume 9 deals with the Mölders household pet squirrel Theo getting lost in the woods for one night. And the last story is about three off-panel opera singers who sung in a The Barber of Seville performance that William and Eleanor attended. As these stories have no bearing on the main narrative of William and Emma's romance, they aren't exactly essential reading. But they still make for a compelling showcase of Kaoru Mori's considerable skills. The story of Theo demonstrates that Mori is just as capable of drawing nature as she is capturing the nuances of Victorian England. She manages to evoke Theo's isolation without unnecessarily anthropomorphizing the squirrel's behavior:


The story about Dorothea and Wilhelm pays careful attention to tiny details that adds up to a highly charged erotic tale about the married couple that deftly shifts between past and present:



A bit of their background revealed explains how much passion plays an essential part in their relationship, especially given Dorothea's flair for the dramatic:


In contrast, the last and longest story about one rising opera singer's unrequited longing towards his colleague is a rather sweet and funny tale about young love, and young people's dreams and ambitions. It has the most tenuous connection with the other stories in this volume:


The story of William and Hakim's first meeting in India is a reminder of the comic nature of their friendship, but is in itself a funny tale of how two boys from alien backgrounds manage to bond over sport. Their meeting pretty much defines their relationship from that point:


The story about two Haworth maids spending a day on a shopping trip is a nice slice of life look into the world of ordinary working women. For such a short story it feels meticulously researched:


Mori is not an artist who skimps on the backgrounds. They're essential to creating her authentic Victorian environments. Indeed, for a project like this, they are as important a character as the people who inhabit them:



Since these are additional stories, they basically serve to round out characters the reader is already familiar with. There are no major emotional climaxes, not counting Theo's tearful reunion with his owner. Just a lot of small character studies. But there is also an overwhelming sense of Mori's mania for the Victorian era. Having completed her main narrative, she's not yet ready to part with her beloved period. But this is an obsession not for something wholly imagined and fantastic, but for something grounded in a particular reality that is still foreign to her. This grants to all of Emma greater believability while still allowing the manga to be full of romance.

Emma Vol. 7

One of the pleasures of reading Emma is observing the evolution of the art of creator Kaoru Mori. As expected for a historical drama, everything is drawn with an eye towards detailed accuracy. But a comparison between the first and this latest volume reveals how far Mori has developed as a cartoonist. The drawings become more meticulous and the cross-hatching more intricate. At the same time the line-work becomes more confident and sensual, the panels for every page become more numerous, yet never overcrowded. The figures become more rounded and the faces more animated. The marriage of quiet understatement with the expressive qualities associated with manga makes Emma an interesting work. Beneath the surface restraint lies intense emotions which are incrementally revealed as the story unfolds.

For all its seriousness, Mori regularly injects a good deal of humor throughout the proceedings. The exotic Hakim Atawari may, or may not be, a faithful representation of an Indian prince, but his ostentatious behavior feels like something out of a Bollywood musical. The assertive and impulsive Countess Monica Mildrake has qualities reminiscent of tomboys and overprotective big sisters found in manga. There's also Emma's clumsy best friend and roommate Tasha and the witty barbs between the Jones siblings. These supporting characters go a long way to livening the narrative.


In volume 6 the forces arrayed against wealthy merchant's son William Jones and low-born maid Emma finally act to destroy their relationship. Volume 5 revealed the background of William's parents. The older couple had married despite societal disapproval, but the stress caused from trying to fulfill unreasonable social expectations did permanent damage to their marriage. Contrasting this with Emma's and William's response to their crisis in volume 7 helps put in perspective the difficulties that lie ahead for them, while suggesting some basis to hope for a happier outcome.


Throughout the course of the story, Kaoru Mori has taken the opportunity to develop Emma's charms. She's naturally intelligent, serious, industrious, and emotionally mature. Her quiet and dignified personality have earned her either admiration or befuddlement amongst her colleagues at Haworth. She's more than a match for the likes of William's fiancee Eleanor Campbell and the frivolous upper-crust girls she associates with. But like William, her main weakness is her fatalism. She confesses that she went along with her forced separation from William because she believed this was the only reasonable course of action to take. She should have resisted William's courting her. They didn't belong to the same class. He was already arranged to a more suitable mate. So as compensation she didn't resist when circumstances led her away from her beloved.

Meanwhile William's character has gone through considerable character development. In the first volume he was indecisive and passive, then acquires a newfound determination to carry-out his familial obligations. In this volume he develops enough resolve to speak against the prevailing class structure, symbolized by Viscount Campbell. And thanks to the assistance of Hakim, he manages to reunite with Emma, and they learn to find strength in one another.

The traditional upstairs-downstairs romance has become something of a cliche, but here it's somehow made fresh. Perhaps it's the the way one culture is being seen through the eyes of an outsider. Kaoru Mori's fascination with England, and her obsession with maids in particular, is so genuine it's infectious (Japan has recently become known for its maid cafes). No facet, however small, is too insignificant for her, whether it's the clothes the people wear, their mannerisms, the tiny gestures, the rules of etiquette observed, the tableware they use, the furniture and decor. It's this unadulterated love for her subject that allows Mori to conjure a world that feels authentic, yet also full of romanticism. The banter between the household servants and the pride they take in their work serves to heighten the self-indulgence of the upper-class. Chatty London society types condescend to their rural counterparts. The established aristocracy sneers at the rising bourgeois. And foreigners observe all this with utter bemusement. The class hierarchy is conveyed without coming across as a social studies lesson. That is a remarkable achievement for any young cartoonist.

I Hate Valentine's Day...

But I'm a sucker for a good love story, and this one's a real gem: Self-confessed Anglophile Kaoru Mori's exquisitely drawn comic Emma is her own love letter to Victorian-Era Great Britain. Can romantically linked couple Emma and William ever truly be together? Kept apart by tradition and unsure they would ever see each other again, their sudden, unexpected, reunion is bittersweet:






What a great moment: An instantaneous outflowing of emotion after many chapters of quiet restraint and separation.