Mud Men, vol. 2 comments

(Image from Amazon.co.jp. Used for review purposes only.)

Mud Men, vol. 2, Daijiro Morohoshi, Grade: B+
(Monthly Shonen Champion, 1981-82)
The story picks up again with a flashback of a newspaper report of a Japanese man found buried at a land development site. He's taken to a hospital in Tokyo, and Miss Barton is brought in to verify that he is speaking Gawan, the language from Kodowa's village. He escapes supervision and finds his way to Namiko's house, where he gets excited at seeing all the masks. Namiko and Barton fly the man, whom the girl nickname's "Piki", to New Guinea. Piki is incredibly naive, and the natives quickly talk him out of all his clothes. At the same time, missionaries from various churches have converged on the country to flood the place with cheap western goods to entice them into becoming followers.

That night, a native from a distant forest village shows up saying that he comes with a message from Kodowa and that they should follow him. The trio, accompanied by a native warden, go the village, where they find a bamboo and sheet replica of an airplane, marking further evidence of a cargo cult. The next night, Piki wanders into the forest on his own, followed by Namiko. The girl gets lost in the woods and is rescued by Kodowa. The following morning, Barton and the warden discover the other two missing, as three of the missionaries arrive at the village in a helicopter. A villager finds Namiko's head scarf, and Barton and the warden go with him to track the girl down. The missionaries get frustrated at not being able to impress the other villagers with cheap t-shirts, and decide to take the helicopter into the most sacred part of the forest to show the gods there who is more powerful. Meanwhile, Namiko is witness to a Mudmen rebirthing ceremony.

Mudmen belief has it that sometimes people are born in the wrong bodies and in the wrong place or time. Piki is one such case, and needs to be reformed to be born as a Papuan. The ceremony is a success. Subsequently, Kodowa takes Namiko to a different part of the forest, where they find a demon skeleton bound in a ritual trap. Before the demon can answer Kodowa's questions, the missionaries arrive and demand to know what is going on. The demon, one of a pre-human race, called "Dema," that had lived here long ago, offended at the western sacrilegious treatment of sacred land, causes the ground to open up and swallow the intruders and their helicopter. The Dema jumps into the hole as well, pausing to tell Namiko that she is the foretold reincarnation of Namite (kind of an Adam and Eve first couple myth). Namiko passes out.

She comes to in the arms of Barton and the warden. They get back to the village, but it's been abandoned. Looking out, they see the cargo cult plane taking the people to a new land, and one of the passengers is the reborn Piki. The story then jumps to the present, with Namiko bent over Kodowa's inert body. A group of mudmen (spirit creatures only, with no physical bodies) tell her that she can save her half-brother, but only if she hurries and has the broken totem restored. They take her to an old shaman woman who is somehow tied to a gigantic overgrowth-covered dinosaur fossil. The woman tells the girl to take the totem to the forest of "octopus trees," and when they ask, say that her name is "Namite." She does this, and the spirits of trees with raised roots attempt to kill her for food. She escapes through a process initiated by the old woman that imitates coming out of a birth canal (another example of rebirth).

Elsewhere in the jungle, the true nature of the Japanese "tourists" and "missionaries" is revealed - they're a part of a team sent by a Japanese oil company for petroleum research, consisting of the one archeologist, a priest, two HQ reps, and a scientist. The priest becomes obsessed with obtaining the damaged totem, and the archeologist wants the big Aen mask. The team wanders into the lair of the Skull Collector, who gloats a bit before disappearing. They then find the fragments of the totem where the minion had shattered it, and bring it back to the collector. Namiko arrives to collect the fragments to save Kodowa, and it's looking like someone needs to be sacrificed in order to restore the totem. Namiko knows that the Masarai are head hunters, but the mudmen aren't. She refuses to fall into Aen's trap, and offers herself as the sacrifice. The Dema appears, tells Skull Collector to not touch the girl, then takes Namiko and the totem back into the forest. This sets up a chase as Namiko takes the fragments to the Octopus Tree men, and the oil company men try to capture her.

Namiko goes to Kodowa's village, where she's recognized as Namite. She accepts this role and works with the headwoman to prepare for a festival. Barton and the oil team get to the village, and are subjected to a rebirth ritual that prevents them from getting close to the girl. The one archeologist and the priest finish the ritual and put on masks to blend in with the villagers. Namiko and the village men take all of the gathered food to the Octopus Tree woods to feed the ravenous tree spirits. The spirits repair the totem, and in return, the villagers throw the food at them and then run madly back home. The village women put out all the fires and other lights and go into hiding. One of the oil team, the scientist, balks at all this and tries getting back to civilization. He sets up camp for the night, including a fire and a torch. When night falls, the Octopus tree men scour the mountains looking for more food, and they see the torch. The village women take refuge at the dinosaur fossil, which comes to life. Some of the boulders the fossil knocks loose plummet to the ground, killing the headwoman, and releasing a pocket of natural gas. The gas combusts and sets the fossil aflame. The scientist has his suspicions confirmed and he radios back to the HQ base that he's found oil. The fire destroys the Octopus tree men, but they scream that this will never stop them. They will be back to feed again.

With the totem restored, Kodowa and N'Baki recover enough to try reaching Namiko. The girl is taken by the surviving villagers to a sacred mountain housing a sacred cave. The priest spies her, and chases her up to the cave mouth, insane with desire for the totem. The archeologist is close behind, hoping for his chance at the Aen mask. Namiko escapes into the cave, and is joined by Kodowa. Inside, they find a massive cavern and a colossal humanoid skeleton half-embedded in the floor. In this place of magic, and in the presence of one of the "big masks", Kowoda gets some more of his power back, and fights with the priest to keep him away from Namiko. The archeologist pulls out a pistol and debates over who he should shoot in this battle. He aims for Kodowa, and Namiko throws the repaired totem at him. It hits him in the eye, causing him to miss his shot, before rebounding towards the skeleton. It reaches up with one long arm and catches the figure.

Kodowa and Namiko escape from the cave and have to fight their way through masked worshipers out to the forest. The skeleton puts on the Big Mask and stands up, destroying the mountain and towering over the forest. It calls for Kodowa to come back and complete the ritual necessary for repeating the Namite and Kaunagi creation myth. The boy refuses to return, and he and his half-sister disappear in the distance. Back in the cave, the archeologist wakes up, his right eye missing. The missionary priest is dead nearby, lying under a boulder. The guy is visited by several Dema, and he follows them through the back of the cave to another land dominated by a skeleton-covered beach, and an endless ocean. Time passes, and occasionally something will wash up on shore and be eaten by insects.  Once, the Aen mask appeared and was claimed by what looks like a ghost. The archeologist subsists on what meat he can find on the things from the ocean, and records his thoughts in a notebook. Time ceases to have meaning. Finally, he takes a giant bone from the piles on the beach, and pushes it into the waters in an attempt to see where the other lifeforms are coming from. The scene shifts to  New Guinea. The warden gives the battered notebook to Miss Barton, telling her it was found in a cavern in Australia. Nearby, an oil company is clearing out the forest and putting up oil drilling rigs. Barton recognizes the symbols on their safety helmets as being the same worn by the Octopus tree men, showing that they were right - they are back and they are consuming everything in front of them.

Barton goes into part of the remaining forest, thinking about everything she's seen. As she walks, she catches just brief glimpses of Kaunagi and Namike frolicking in paradise.

Sabaibal (Saba + ibal = Survival) (Manga Action, 1979). The first filler chapter has an airplane crash in a desert. The survivors wander across the sands until they find a huge can of tinned fish (saba). The story revolves around their attempts to open it, and the fighting and failures that follow. They do find an appropriately sized can opener, but it's too unwieldy to get to actually work. Eventually, one person is left, and he too dies from dehydration and starvation. Later, the can is found by nomads, who take it back to camp and work together to get it open to feed their people.

Daonan (Young Jump, 1979). An African bushman tracks an animal that looks like a springbok to a weird rock outcrop. The animal is dead, a bit too quickly for the poison he used, so he is suspicious. Nearby is a blobby creature that eventually reveals itself to be the occupant of a crashed spaceship. Daonan treats the blob, which he calls "Bubi", as a companion, but keeps repeating that the meat from the Springbok is his to be taken back to his people some week's travel away. The two protect each other from the threats in the bush, and become more or less good traveling companions. One day, they reached a packed stretch of dirt used as a road. Nearby is a truck with white hunters. One of the hunters shoots and kills the blob. Daonan stands there, staring at them as they inspect their trophy. The scene switches to an old woman telling tales to the village children. When she is done, one of the kids asks what happened to Daonan, and the woman looks up at the sky and says that his gentle spirit has ascended to the stars to join the soul of Bubi.

Last Magic (Young Jump, 1980). Monof is from Africa, maybe Nigeria, currently living in Tokyo. The world's leaders have gathered to address the crisis facing them. A thick blanket of clouds has covered the world, plunging it into an ever-deepening winter. No one has answers. One day, Monof's father visits him, and performs a ritual begging the sun to come out (people have forgotten that they need to do this periodically to show the sun they love it). The ritual succeeds and everyone is saved.

Death of the Emperor (Business Jump, 1984). A young Japanese salaryman flies back to Tokyo to rejoin his father's company, as the next in line to succeed him as CEO. The guy, who is never explicitly named, is greeted by several board members. At first, things look normal, but after a few weeks the CEO gets more fragile, demanding and manic. The son is prepped for the handover ceremony when the old man collapses and is hospitalized. On the day of the ceremony, the old man charges from the hospital and into his offices, yelling that he's still young, still powerful, and still CEO. One of his assistants gives him something to drink, but he throws it to the ground. The crashing sound alerts the son, who runs into the room as everyone else warns him to keep out. The glass had been poisoned. Since the old CEO wasn't willing to die quietly, one of the bodyguards strangles him with a scarf. The son discovers that the most important thing for a company is the smooth transition of leaders, and there can only be one. This is how the father had taken over, and now it's the son's time. He's taken to the auditorium, where all the employees applaud their new CEO.

Summary: Macabre. But still, fun. Morohoshi has a very recognizable character style, and his background artwork is really detailed. I can't comment on the accuracy of the Mudmen myths, but it was still fun to read about them and the cargo cult history. The stand-alone stories weren't quite as good as the ones from the first volume, but they were readable. A little bit of frontal nudity, if you are bothered by that kind of thing. Regardless, recommended if you can find it used.