The thing about manga is that no two manga have the exact same art style. They can be super, hyper-detailed, or they can be intentionally simplistic, conveying whatever they want to convey in their own way. But very few manga get the full-color treatment, and a little gem I just discovered, Kagome Kagome by Aoi Ikebe, is one of those manga that really puts it to great use. Kagome Kagome (Not to be confused with the manga of the same name by Yui Yoshiki that was published in 1999) takes place somewhere in 18th century France, specifically at the Au Tolonado Nunnery, where a group of nuns raise orphaned girls and train them to become future nuns. Everyone there fulfills their duties and lives their days in relative peace, taking joy in God's every day gifts. But one of the sisters, Malena, begins to yearn for a life outside the convent and wonders if she's truly happy being where she is.

Kagome Kagome is a one volume manga spanning eleven chapters it really manages to make optimal use of both its short length and its full color status. The panels are all bordered like church windows, using art noveau-style frames that give each panel a sense of flow, almost like you're really looking into a church window. The backgrounds may seem simple on the surface, lacking much in the way of detail, but Ikebe makes up for it with her excellent use of color and light, conveying both the mood of a scene, establishing the feel of the setting (Such as light, bland colors for the convent, and striking yet melancholy oranges and reds of the red light district), and showing the feelings and emotions that the characters are feeling without having them outright state them in dialogue. From the watercolor backgrounds to the simple yet expressive and distinct character designs, it's pretty clear that Ikebe-sensei is a talented artist who really knows how to convey a lot with very little.

This extends to the overall story as well. Everything is portrayed in as subtle and down-to-earth a manner as possible, with nothing in the way of histrionics or melodrama. For those who follow my reviews on my LiveJournal, you may remember that I once reviewed an obscure manga called A Letter To The Sky, and while I did enjoy it, it had the problem of having its characters scream their feelings and emotions in big long speeches all the time, reveling in melodrama and playing out like a soap opera, engineered to wring tears out of you at any opportunity it could. Kagome Kagome deftly lets its characters behave naturally, and it makes use of silence and imagery in order to show what a character is feeling. Malena feels trapped in her life at the church, wanting to have a life with the gardener Kolya, but nuns are forbidden to wed or even have relationships with men. The manga doesn't need to show her spewing Shakespearian monologues about how she wants to be with him, Ikebe-sensei shows it with images of Malena looking at him through the cage-like windows, or how she cherishes the feeling of his hand touching hers when they encounter each other at the festival. Things like facial expressions and gestures are used to great effect, again conveying so much with very little.

Since Kagome Kagome is only one volume long, consisting of only eleven chapters, there isn't a lot of time for character development, though again, Ikebe-sensei values subtlety over elaboration, and since the series is mainly confined to one or two locations, we do get to know the characters, their routines, how they go about their days, and so on. Any backstories they have are not overly elaborate or drawn out, doing just enough to show how they came to be who they are. Malena and Emila get the most focus, and while they're not the most fleshed out or three-dimensional, they're definitely the most interesting and relatable, with their own desires, strengths, weaknesses, and manage to carry the story perfectly. I do kind of wish we could have learned more about the other characters, like Sister Vie or Lila and how they came to the church. They and the other characters are fine as a collective group, but I wish we could have gotten to know them more as individuals. But with the story and setting being what it is, do we really need to? They do say less is more, after all. That's really my only gripe with the manga, and even then that's really stretching it.

Granted, Kagome Kagome as a story isn't going to be for everyone. It's very firmly a historical slice-of-life manga that's content to be what it is and nothing more. Don't come in here expecting something like Attack on Titan or Rent-A-Girlfriend. If I were to make a comparison, I'd say Kagome Kagome's approach to storytelling is similar to that of Super Cub, an anime that's also very muted and down-to-earth, using very similar narrative techniques. Speaking of anime, I'd love to see someone adapt Kagome Kagome into an anime, probably a movie. I bet it'd look absolutely amazing if in the right hands. Overall, Kagome Kagome is a sweet, wholesome, soothing historical period manga that deserves way more love and recognition than it gets. Honestly, after reading this, I'm gonna try seeking out more of Aoi Ikebe's work.