Hipira children’s book review

Hipira is a more of a regular children’s book than a manga in terms of presentation. However it IS written by Katsuhiro Otomo, the mangaka behind Akira (which I read a few years ago and which was surprisingly good for something I expected to be overrated) and besides nothing says I only have to review anime and manga here, so there we get. Plus the happy, heartwarming story and colorful art makes a nice change from all the ‘alternative’ stuff I read last week. Here’s the book summary:

In the vampire city of Saruta [referred to as Salta in the story itself], the sun never rises and all the vampire children love to stay up late. Hipira is a precocious young vampire whose best friend is a fairy named Soul, and their games, pranks, and adventures are extraordinary even for the inhabitants of this supernatural city.

Normally I quite hate vampires and werewolves and zombies and that sort of things (especially zombies. But also vampires. And werewolves) but I make exceptions for cute stories where nobody gets hurt or killed. In fact Hipira is just a regular children’s book about a regular kid vampire. The way the first page even starts “My name is Hipira. The truth is, I’m a vampire. Everyone better be really afraid of me!” just makes the whole thing cute. Though it would have been a nice twist if the very next page showed him murdering and devouring innocent village-folk the way ‘real’ vampires are wont to do.

So what does Hipira do? Well I don’t want to spoil the whole book (not this time, anyway), but there’s a mysterious castle in the town of Salta where the Town Elder lives. No one knows what goes on in there, so Hipira takes it upon himself to get to the bottom of this monumental mystery.

He stumbles upon an experiment to send vampires to hell (because hell is heaven for vampires) which fails at the last moment, leaving Hipira with a new buddy called Soul. Together they go around playing pranks on the townsfolk and saving a forest from a giant toad and other such tales of derring-do. The book comes to a rather abrupt end after only a few episodes, which makes the book feel rather incomplete. That’s the main problem I had with the book.

The other problem is that the text is slightly ‘translatey’ sometimes. I try not to criticize translations too much because I translate myself and there’s always room for improvement. But still, a few lines in the book felt off.

Maybe it’s because there’s so little text that every line stands out. Or maybe because those few “off” lines don’t follow the style one would expect of a children’s book, i.e. short, precise sentences, simple language, not using two words when one would do, that sort of thing.. Either way lines like “The reason being that” instead of just “Because” or “The truth is, I’m a vampire!” instead of just “I’m a vampire!” or “Mom and Dad haven’t gotten up yet” instead of “Mom and Dad are still asleep” and odd phrasings like “Light is spilling out” (?) stick out like sore thumbs.

Those are the only things I can really criticize. The art by Shinji Kimura is gorgeous with lots of little details both on the characters themselves and in the backgrounds, which are especially lovely (apparently he’s famous for his background art). The story ended too quickly for the characters to be really fleshed out. Soul in particular doesn’t get up to much, but we do learn enough about the main characters and the world they live in to tickle the imagination. So yeah, it’s a little short on substance but with art that beautiful, who cares?

tl;dr Hipira itself wasn’t that great a book story-wise, but I’d love to read more in the same art style. Or maybe  a cartoon? It could work!