As one of the creators of Horimiya, you might be familiar with HERO, and for some readers, that alone will be reason enough to pick this up. However, even without that endorsement, Ako and Bambi’s debut volume stands on its own two feet and differs significantly from its more well-known sibling in several very significant ways. The most crucial thing to remember is that, despite some indications that it might eventually go that way, it’s not now a straight romance or even a romance at all. Rather, it’s the tale of two troubled individuals who encounter each other in an unexpected way—she seems to be a ghost, and he’s a writer.
When Bambi lives into a scary apartment complex, Ako and Bambi first meet. Recently, Bambi was awarded a new authors’ prize, but he’s quickly discovering that his new vocation isn’t glamorous. When the novel opens, he has just found out that his series has been canceled, and his editor informs him that not many people applied for the prize he won. Bambi is given the opportunity to write short stories, but he feels quite lost and as like his creative well has run dry. He writes horror, a genre he doesn’t particularly enjoy, and part of the issue is that he doesn’t know where to find additional inspiration to write anything different.
Bring in Ako. Bambi got a deal when he rented his remarkably inexpensive flat since he was informed that it was haunted—a woman had recently committed suicide in the bathtub. Bambi initially believes that Ako, who emerges behind him, is the same as the suicide ghost, but the high school student corrects him, saying that she has met a different ghost. She simply drifted into the room at some time and struck up a conversation with a woman in the bathtub. The woman then went to get revenge on the man she believes killed her, leaving Ako to haunt the place by herself. The problem is, Ako doesn’t know how she arrived to Bambi’s apartment or how she passed away. She only knows that she is dead and that the sun disappears her with it every morning.
At first, Bambi is willing to take this at face value, but when a real-life Ako, a high school student, shows up wearing the identical uniform, things quickly get more complicated. Though Bambi has permission from Ghost Ako to create a character based on her, he is starting to doubt the reality as it seems that she might not be fully aware of her existence. This is all well and good, but Hero goes one step further in explaining why Bambi and Ghost Ako are able to communicate in the first place: there might well be a bullying narrative buried beneath it all.
We find out that Bambi left high school early for unspecified reasons, and unpleasant girls in the class make a comment to Ako that seems to suggest that she tried suicide or at least self-harmed to the extent that the rumors started. The notion that Ghost Ako is a fragment of Ako that she “killed” starts to emerge from this. As Bambi points out, Ghost Ako has a different hairstyle and doesn’t wear glasses—though occasionally she tries to push them up, suggesting that she wears contacts and isn’t used to them—and she seems happier, even though her words and demeanor don’t always match that appearance. In light of Ako’s glasses, hanging hair, and hesitant manner, it appears that Ako underwent significant transformations. She seems to be acting in self-defense when it comes to everything, especially the way the other girls in her class treat her. Although the reason behind Bambi’s dropout remains unknown, his interactions with a former classmate reveal that he is acting very uncomfortable. It’s possible that Bambi, like Ako, is dealing with difficult social situations from his past that have caused him to become a metaphorical ghost whose voice is only heard on paper, rather than just being a shut-in when we meet him.
It’s too soon to determine how much of this is genuine. While keeping the plot closer to slice-of-life territory rather than a full-fledged mystery, HERO does an astonishingly good job of providing us with trail markers to follow, letting readers take what’s on the page and run with it. This is a fairly good example of the utilization of a four-panel style; instead of feeling like standalone gags or story strands, which can happen easily with the format, each strip flows naturally into the next. The artwork, which primarily uses blue accents and sepia tones, is pretty excellent at creating the feeling of a faded world that is not quite our own after you get used to it.
The first volume of Ako and Bambi is brief, yet the storyline feels like it could fill a whole book. Even though it’s playing it close to the vest, reading the next book feels even more necessary. This is worth a look if you enjoy light mystery with sinister overtones and a paranormal element.
