SHIGESHOUSHI

DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

• 

  Messyrats

  75/100
  Sometimes you need to immerse yourself in something heavy, this was that for me.

  I read this on the day that my nan passed away.

  Some would argue that reading something that's as emotionally heavy as The Embalmer immediately following the death of a loved one would be a bad idea, and I can see why, but I needed to drown myself in something and this had been on my list of things to read for years, so I decided to take the plunge.

  I'll get my criticisms out of the way first: I think the romance subplot is underdeveloped and that things wrap up a little too neatly. (Wedding bells and all.) There are elements of the story that I don't feel work as well as they should, such as the dollmakers. There is perhaps maybe a little too much disconnect between the way that Shinjurou is presented in the flashback arc when compared to how he is in present time, but these are all minor grievances. Reading The Embalmer was, more than anything else, a helpful experience. It was a reminder that grief is a universal emotion, that there is no truly right way to process it but there are, at the very least, things you can do to make the pain even a little easier. In the moment, it was definitely something that I needed.

  A lot of stories in The Embalmer tend to play out in a similar way. Someone will die, through accident or other means. Shinjuurou will be called upon in his capacity as an embalmer to restore the body to a state in which family and friends will be able to say goodbye in a way that treats the deceased with dignity. We learn something about the lives of the deceased and there will be ruminations on life and the nature of this work. The manga making it clear to its readers that - at the time it was published - whilst embalming is a more common practice overseas it is seen as unusual and unclean in Japan, tainting the dead. Though at the very least, the families often end up becoming appreciative of the work done.

  It's a story structure that allows for a lot of room to have insights on the lives people lead, what the death of a loved one means to a person and how they'll cope with it from then on. In the first chapter, a student with a promising ballet career is tragically killed in a traffic accident, her face horribly scarred in the process to the point that she's nearly unrecognisable. Later on in the manga, that same student's lover has, through time, been able to move on with his life by virtue of being able to see her in the state she would likely wish to be remembered in after embalming. Easy? Not at all, but possible.

  It also never forgets to show that, even with a process like embalming, that no amount of restoration can make the pain easier. People will always respond to any form of grief differently and there is no one-for-all solution when it comes to managing it. Some will be able to find the strength to be able to live on, others may never truly reconcile the loss they've experienced. Though it may have criticisms of some of the practices that people may engage in when trying to cope (the aforementioned dolls) the people who are experiencing this loss are never condemned for it. There's a level of empathy on display here for people from all walks of life that helps to stop the manga feeling like it's misery porn even with the heavy subject matter so regularly in discussion.

  I think my favourite story comes around halfway through the manga. It's about a woman who only has six months left to live as a result of terminal illness. Though not unusual, she makes the funeral arrangements herself, only to ask Shinjurou and his coworker to attend the funeral as the mourners; she doesn't think anyone else will actually show up.

  Though she never did it with any malicious intent, she often made decisions which resulted in her becoming isolated, with no friends or family to turn to, almost always being caught up in her work. When the funeral finally does happen, she is, tragically, correct and no one does end up showing up. That is until a mother and daughter who had heard about her passing attend the funeral to mourn her in place of anyone else. As it turns out, though she had made these decisions, she had also ended up helping out this mother and daughter in the past and they remembered as much. As the funeral goes on, more people that she had helped out at various points in time trickle in, each one remembering the kindness she showed them. She made semi-permanent flowers for a living, so during the funeral arrangements she asked for them to be put in her coffin as they were going to outlive her. The people who attend the funeral end up taking a flower each to remember her by.

  Some might find this story sappy or overly melodramatic. For me, there was something so incredibly human about the whole thing. I'm not going to say that this is how my nan would have wanted to be remembered, but as sad as funerals can be, they're also very much a celebration and honouring of a person's life and in the moment, I thought this encapsulated all of that beautifully. If she's going to be remembered then I would hope that, in this case, that she'd be remembered for all the things that made her life worth celebrating in the first place.

  I'm not sure whether or not her recent passing has properly sunk in yet. The funeral was last week, but it still feels as though I could go down to the accommodation she was staying in and pay her a visit. The distinct way she'd say "hiya" to me is burned into my memory. I'd walk in and hear her tell me that I must be well over 6 feet with how tall I am in relation to her. When I was younger, I'd go to her house after school and have plates filled with ginger biscuits and mess around on my grandad's keyboard as a way to procrastinate from doing homework. If me and my brothers were having to stay there during summer holidays then they'd take us to parks and we'd feed ducks. They might not be what some people consider special memories, but they're special to me.

  I can't recommend The Embalmer to everyone. If the subject matter it deals with seems like it might be too much then I'd probably advise staying away from it even with how hopeful it can be. It never shies away from the fact that dealing with grief is hard. If that doesn't deter you, then I think it's a very worthwhile read; it was definitely that for me.

  Whether or not what I've written here is good is, ultimately, irrelevant to me, because I managed to get a lot out of this manga on a day that I really needed it. In that sense it's a work that's above criticism for me. There are flaws, yes, but they'll never outweigh the help it offered.

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