Manga Review: Billy Bat 1 by Naoki Urasawa with Takashi Nagasaki
Billy Bat is a private detective in a world of anthropomorphic animals. He’s a hard-boiled type in the noir tradition with a cynical personality who refuses to use his wings unless he absolutely has to. (Or perhaps he can’t fly at all.) His current case is being hired by bulldog Edward Costello to check up on a cheating wife. She’s cheating all right, but when Billy goes to report in, Costello is dead. The police like the spouse for the murder, but Billy realizes she’s got an alibi. Him.
Just as it looks like Billy Bat has had a major break in the case, the story abruptly fades out, and we see that it’s a comic book story being produced by Earth human Kevin Yamagata. It’s 1949 and Kevin is a Japanese-American artist recently discharged from the Army, where he was a translator in Japan for the occupation forces. A talented illustrator, he created Billy for Marble Comics, and his work has become very popular, similar in sales to Wonder Woman.
His initial problem is that he isn’t feeling the original “Communists did it” ending to the chapter. But this is rapidly eclipsed by the sudden intrusion of police detectives. It seems that one of Kevin’s neighbors has been accused of being a Soviet spy, and Kevin’s apartment just happens to be the perfect observation post to watch the guy’s window. They aren’t going to see much as the curtains are firmly drawn, but it’s the idea that counts.
Things take another turn when one of the detectives looks at the Billy Bat manuscript and suddenly realizes he’s seen this exact character design before, in Japan, though he can’t remember the details. Kevin is shocked at the idea that Billy may not be his original character, but a subconscious copy.
So it is that Kevin heads back to Japan to search down the origins of the Bat. He’s informally drafted back into the American Army, as they desperately need translators to investigate stockpiles of documents, many quite old, that have been seized. He’s commandeered by an old colleague who’s maybe a bit shady, taken out for drinks and wakes up with a corpse nearby.
This plunges Kevin into a web of danger and conspiracy, which seems to indicate that the Bat, or possibly two Bats, one white and one black, has been entwined with human history from the beginning. There’s even a sudden jump to 1969 as the Apollo 11 astronauts discover something unexpected on the Moon.
This seinen (men’s) manga ran from 2008 to 2016 for twenty volumes. By the creator of 20th Century Boys and Pluto, as well as a co-author I’m less familiar with, it’s a wild ride through history and hidden connections. It was for a while considered something that wouldn’t be able to get an English-language release, among other reasons some very pointed allegory about the Disney corporation, but at last here it is.
The art, as expected from Urasawa, is excellent, and the Billy Bat portion allows him to work in a style very different from his usual. It’s more reminiscent of pre-Tezuka manga than of Golden Age American comics, and the Billy Bat plotline more resembles European comics, but I get the idea.
There’s also some weirdness where the Billy Bat portions appear to predict events in the real world, and Billy may be speaking directly to Kevin in his head…if Kevin isn’t just hallucinating that.
Content note: Murder, some gory. Attempted sexual assault. Other minor violence. A streetwalker is apparently attacked by one of her clients (we only see the bruise), and we see her nude. Racism. Alcohol abuse. Older teens should be okay, and the plot is intricate enough that younger folks are likely to get lost.
This is an intriguing start to the series, and I recommend it to conspiracy fiction fans, especially if you like works where the main character doubts their sanity.
