Dee
Rating:

I'll give Endo credit for this. Unlike a lot of young creators in the early '00s, his work has aged relatively well. He loves gender-swapping traditional action roles. Each story centers around a brash fighting heroine. Except for Witch Craze, the heroes are ing figures, sometimes “dudes in distress,” but they're still respected for their work and often form the moral core of the story. This may be because Endo likes drawing cool ladies, but it does allow him to expand the image of what heroes and heroines can look like.

Every story also touches on social issues, albeit clumsily. Misogynist baddies and corrupt politicians have the subtlety of a trumpet blast, but it's still satisfying to see them taken down. Endo is anti-drug in a way that suggests he knows nothing about drugs. “PMG-0” tries to argue that police are meant to save lives, not end them, but it gets lost under all the comical brutality, cartoonishly evil teen gangsters, and a character saying “She may be a loose cannon, but she gets the job done.” Per Endo's commentary, “Western Game” was almost awash in racist Chinese stereotypes, but it wasn't, and we can all be grateful for that.

The first two one-shots are somewhat charming as amateur works, especially given that Blade of the Moon Princess eventually gets rebooted into a full series. After that, the repetitive character types, relationship dynamics, and central conflicts start to drag. To Endo's credit, he's aware of this, as he wryly notes, “This whole collection is nothing but drugs and guns.” But that's not much fun for me as a reader, and this is the first time reviewing a title for the Manga Guide has felt like work.

It doesn't help that Endo's early art is pretty ugly, featuring lumpy faces, off-kilter proportions, and sloppy, unclear action scenes. From an artistic perspective, it's impressive to watch his style develop throughout the volume—and incredible to think this man will one day draw us some of the most smokin' hot adults in recent JUMP memory. Truly an inspiring reminder that practice makes perfect.

Four Lives Remain functions mostly as a time capsule for Endo fans. Completionists may want this volume on their shelves, and young artists may want to set it side-by-side with SPY x FAMILY to remind themselves that everyone has to start somewhere. For casual readers, though, I'd recommend spending your time on more polished works.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I really do appreciate Viz's commitment to bringing over collections of great manga creators' early works. It's literarily important; juvenilia is often reserved for the likes of the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen, so giving Tatsuya Endō's early stories an English release helps to legitimize manga in a concrete way. The only problem with this effort is that Four Lives Remain, like the two collections that preceded it in our previous Manga Guide, isn't very good.

That's not entirely Endo's fault, because let's face it, we all write shitty first drafts, and in Endo's case, at least one of the stories here went on to become a serial – Blade of the Moon Princess. The bones of what that series will become are easily seen in its original short story, and Kaguya, like the other heroines in the collection, is no one's damsel in distress. In fact, that's the greatest strength of the book on the whole: Endo consistently writes heroines who are worthy of the designation. They stand up for themselves, defy gender norms, and don't slot into the role of “the girl” that often happens in shounen manga. Yor and Anya are distillations of the heroines in these stories, and maybe that's the real value in collections like these.

In fact, that's how I'd suggest reading this: as a window into the evolution of a creator's skills. Four Lives Remain isn't a book you read for the lumpy art and the clumsy storytelling; it's a book you read to see how Endo eventually got to SPY x FAMILY. You look for the seeds of Loid, Yor, and Anya, for the way he creates characters and plots as he matures as a writer, and the themes that will eventually come to fruition. Taken on its own, Four Lives Remain isn't very good. But used as a window into Tatsuya Endō's evolution as a manga creator, it's at least interesting.