by Keiko YAMADA
Vs. is an entertaining variation on a well-tread theme: Reiji is a technically brilliant — yet emotionally stunted — violinist, who chokes during the all-important competitions. Beautiful Mitsuko is a wounded violin prodigy-turned-teacher, who takes on this problem child of a student.
Together, they vow to win the national violin competition — which will save his music scholarship — and in the process, he falls for her. But their shared path to fame and acclaim has speed bumps in the form of jealous rivals, tragedy-filled pasts, and the unwelcome attentions of Mitsuko’s former love, a calculating and world-renowned conductor with a history and secrets of his own.
Elements of this sound familiar, right?
What sets Vs. apart is Keiko Yamada‘s grasp of the X factor great musicians bring to the pieces they perform. This is often hard to communicate without a soundtrack and one area where music and dance manga often stumble. While her technical details may or may not be factually correct, she intuitively gets the communal “a-ha” moment the performer and audience share when a musician’s emotions and history merge with the notes on the page to create a very personal version of a given composition.
It’s magic. Once you’ve experienced it, you could spend your life trying to recapture that feeling. But what happens when a musician is unable to pursue that feeling and dream? Will his or her passion for music lead to ruin or salvation?
In real life, these are heartbreaking questions that rarely have easy answers. This is where the manga Vs. sings.