manga: Planet Ladder Vol 1
This seven volume classic shoujo is by Yuri Narushima, the same mangaka as Young Magician, so I knew going in that it would probably be hopelessly complex and confusing. I was right.
The day teenaged Kaguya’s adoptive father is arrested for embezzlement, she gets a strange call coming from a man she doesn’t know saying that he will come for her that night. That night-after a lengthy conversation with a ghost woman during which Kaguya sensibly tells the friend she was on the phone with to call the police because of strange people in her house-two men, silent bishounen Seeu and the more seasoned warrior Idou- come for her and battle each other, despite apparently having been friends and fighting on the same side in a war 300 years ago. In the aftermath, Kaguya and a chunk of her house end up in another world. With her is an even more silent young man who was with Seeu, and who appears to be an automated construct.
Like Young Magician, Planet Ladder dumps you in the middle of the plot when it’s well under way. Unlike Young Magician, Kaguya is just as lost as we are. The automated boy now traveling with Kaguya appears to be the reconstruction of a one handed boy from her memory. There’s a silver haired woman in a carriage who Kaguya remembers in loving detail. Kaguya’s tarot readings-which she has frequently-always end with the last card being blank. And did I mention the ghost woman and the old friends and war buddies turned enemy?
Naturally, volume 2 is the only volume of this that I don’t have.