Cover: Burubon no Fuin
Cover: Nankin Rodo
Morikawa earned her fame in 1980s with her tragical spy story “Nankin-Rodo ni Hana-fubuki (Blossom Showers in Nanjing Road)” which laid its setting in Shanghai in 1940s. With her other works being set in Venice in the 15th century (“Barentino (Valentino)” series) and France in the 17th century ( “Burubon no Fuin (Seal of the Bourbon Dynasty)” )for example, Morikawa apparently prefers historical themes to contemporary, daily situational stories. She is good at making exciting stories with a dash of humor in complex, exotic backgrounds.
Her stories are difficult to follow because of her artwork; some characters look similar, and some happenings are omitted from the art, forcing readers to read between lines a lot. Yet, her art is beautiful even in action scenes, and the stories are almost always logical. I think what I like about her works is her sense of fairness. She seems to study things from more than one angle.
For example, Nankin-Rodo deals with arguments among various interests, such arguments as between warmongering Japanese military officers and more considerate ones, between Chinsese supporters of Communist Party and those of Kuomintang Party, and between Chinese mafias and Europian munitioneers. Even from the number of parties involved in the story, you may see this work would be beyond a “good guys vs. bad guys” picture. You may see also that, although the story is focused on the espionage of a “good” Japanese team who tries to prevent a war, the team’s boss is described as more realistic than pacifistic. And the leading character Huang, who is Japanese-Chinese, betrays the team to help Communists after conflicts within himself.
This heavy theme matches the historical backgrounds Morikawa chooses and is described well in her ethereal art.
