ANIMERICA EXTRA - December 2003 Issue YASHA Feature!
There were many other YASHA features during the short runtime of the ANIMERICA EXTRA Magazine Viz Media had published, and I hope to post them when I am able! This post will be updated later with links to the original sources I had gotten these images from once I have properly archived them. For now— here is a transcription below the image!
A look at Japan's most popular manga…
YASHA is arguably Akimi Yoshida's most popular series after BANANA FISH. Although
it possesses all the complexity, intrigue, and good looks of its predecessor, YASHA's setting, context and lead character are completely different.
While both leads have tragic pasts, Sei is no punk from urban America's backstreets—he's a privileged wunderkind working at a
fancy biotech company in affluent suburbia.
A blond boy getting an MRl is treated kindly by the doctor. The boy is Sei, and his mother tells him not to leave the hospital alone or talk to strangers while she consults with the doctor. "We're poor." Sei scoffs, "No one would kidnap me." For as long as he can remember, Sei and his mom traveled to this Tokyo hospital for an exam every six months.
Back in Okinawa, Sei's best friend is Toichi Nagae. Unfortunately for the boys, Toichi's brother has been accepted into a Tokyo college, and the family will be moving there soon. Maybe it won't so bad—Sei can visit his uncle there, and the boys can finally go to Disneyland together!
Before the Nagaes leave, they attend their town's summer festival. The fun is cut short when the boys return to Sei's home to find his mother being held captive by men in suits and sunglasses. Sei allows the men to take him if they'll let Toichi go. In a desperate attempt to free her son, Sei's mother grabs a thug's gun and aims at the man in charge. She's shot down in front of Sei's eyes. The fleeing Toichi finds his brother and drags him back to Sei's house, but by then, It's a desserted mess. Only they observe the huge helicopter leaving the island; only they know Sei has been kidnapped.
Six years later. Sei has survived grad school without getting tainted by its posturing and politics. There's an opening for a virus specialist in Japan, and Sei's mentor at Neo Genesis suggests, despite the danger of going back, perhaps Sei should return to Japan while he has the chance.
In the meantime. Toichi has become a fairly normal
high-school senior living with his brother who always works late at his lab. Naturally, It's the same lab as the one where Sei's going to work!
Soon Sei and Toichi are reunited, but the situation in far from normal. First there's Sei's pair of bodyguards. Then thugs hired by Neo Genesis' rival attack the clinic Sei's uncle manages. Sei's cool look and attitude are also different, and his uncanny senses as a child have been honed to ultra-human capacities. Plus, people keep mistaking Sei for a guy named Rin and a woman named Shizuka!
It turns out Rin is Sei's previously unknown
twin brother, and their meeting is a strange one. Initially emotionless,
Rin suddenly turns on the charm, acting like a long-lost sibling happy to see his big brother. From the start, Toichi doesn't trust Rin, making it difficult to talk to Sei about him. That Rin's last name is the same as that of the man who kidnapped Sei all those years ago further complicates the situation.
"Yasha" means "female demon." Along the way to discovering the title's connection to the story, there's plenty of action, emotion and intrigue. Sei's tangled personal life meshes together with a scheme by powerful men to develop a deadly virus, all plot
elements combine to create a highly engaging series. If you like complex stories with plenty of appealing guys, try YASHA, Sei makes being smart cool.
