What a Wonderful World! Volume One is a collection of interrelated stories written and drawn by Inio Asano, who is absolutely lovely at creating manga. Music is a consistent theme, as the nine stories are called "Track 1," Track 2," etc... Asano writes about young people, like always, ranging from middle-school age to young adulthood. Suicide is a repetitive motif in these stories, and the mood is dark. A raven shinigami. A ronin, meaning not a masterless samurai but a student who failed entrance exams to college and must go to cram school for another year. And most of all women.
Asano's work has a lot of character. It reminds me a lot of Naoki Urasawa. Both artists have a unique style. I could open up to a random page of an unmarked book of either Urasawa or Asano and immediately recognize whose work it is. But Asano's strength is his portrayal of women, sometimes quirky, sometimes frustrated, sometimes successful, sometimes not. In this volume, he portrays shocking violence with the same ease as he portrays bored young women. I've ordered Volume Two already.
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