Saturn
Apartments (volumes 1-3) by Hisae Iwaoka
Summary:
In the future all of humanity has moved off Earth to giant apartment buildings
that orbit the Earth while it recuperates and life goes on as normal. There are
rich people and poor people, those with happy lives and those with regrets, but
the real difference between life on Earth and on the space station is that only those on the upper
levels can afford to have their gigantic windows cleaned so they can see real
sunlight again. Mitsu, like his father before him, is one of those window
cleaners who does this dangerous job everyday and hopes to bring a bit of joy
to people’s lives.
The
Good: Once the story got into the swing of things I
liked the slice of life aspect of the story, especially since many of the minor
characters became reoccurring characters (I think that reoccurring characters
strengthen a story, or perhaps it’s the setting that encourages reoccurring
characters, one that while it’s slice of life has progression of time and
character development). I do like a subplot that was also introduced in the
second volume, where the characters start wondering what is going on on Earth all this time and how some of the
characters are slowly starting to make plans to sneak down to Earth and find
out, and that’s the real reason I want to continue to series, to see what they
find out.
The
Bad: This is a bit of a slow series, it took a
volume and a half before I got into it and, if I was buying this instead of
having the luxury to get it out of the library, I wouldn’t have picked up the
second volume. It’s a very niche title, almost more so than some of the other Sig Ikki
titles, and even though I ended up enjoying the story in the end I can’t see
myself wanting to buy it, re-read it, and can’t think of any friends of mine
who I would even recommend it to. Normally I want to do at least one of those
things so I think that there is something just off with the overall tone/feel
of the story that makes it a bit hard to like. I’m not saying people can’t like
it, I’m just saying that even people who would ordinarily like a slice of life,
sci-fi story might not like this as much.
The
Art: The artwork reminds me a little of Natsume Ono's style
in the way the characters are drawn. The designs seem a bit simplistic and rely
more on basic looking shapes than intricate details to differentiate. The
backgrounds however have more detail to them and for a story where the setting
is so important, in a way it’s the titular character, it wouldn’t have worked
quite as well if the backgrounds were as simple as the characters. There are
very few if any screentones used and the pen and ink shading gives the station
a worn and outdated feeling and, considering all the comparisons that are made
between the luxurious upper levels and the poorer lower levels I’m sure that
was a deliberate choice.
It's not a series I can see myself purchasing in the future, it just doesn't have that much re-readability or loanability for me, but if the library got more volumes or if more chapters were uploaded online on the Sig Ikki site I think I'd continue following along.
