2 out of 5

As a reader of US comic books, I am familiar with schedule filler. While I’m fuzzy on the technicals, for whatever reason, a gap occurs in a pre-set list of pages being published, and an editor will grab so-and-so for a one-shot to fill that spot in. These things tend to tenuously connect to whatever other material is being published and thus can be kinda forced, but can also be opportunities for something off the beaten path, or good training for writers to hone their work-for-hire skills.

There is a variation of this filler, though, that is almost always pretty bad: purposeful filler. The version of this that falls into that “almost always” category tends to be special edition inclusions, like a comic book that comes with a DVD / bluray, or that’s exclusive in some similar way. That very exclusivity tends to double down on the tenuousness, and then, because this thing has been commissioned for some very specific purposes, it also tends to tamp down on the creativity. In short: books in this club read like third party make-work.

That seems… wrong to say about something that more or less does add directly to a creative work by the very creator of that work, but all the same: this set of short stories written by AoT mangaka Hajime Isayama was initially a bonus with a Japanese volume of the series, then, as translated for English-only folk like me, was included with one of the tankobon box sets. It’s certainly very possible that that translation (by Ko Ransom) comes into play of my negative take, but I’d say it reads in the kind of stuttered pacing of some light novels I’ve read, and is of Isayama’s “voice” in the manga – also translated by Ransom – so I’m less apt to blame that as the major source of my criticisms. I.e. it reads right, I just don’t think it’s very good, and comes across like that mandated make-work: like a publisher asking for a bonus entry on a time crunch, as opposed to being part of Hajime’s planned roadmap. That could totally not be the case; I’m totally making up my own narrative to better (?) explain how I feel.

Also conjecture: that this is Hajime’s first prose publication. Just as his comic book storytelling needed time to evolve, that may also be the case here, as one format does not directly equate to working in the other, and some of the hyperfocus on character beats and overt symbolism is in line with AoT, but again, much less engaging / much more forced in this presentation.

“Short Stories” is comprised of two short stories – Shelter from the Rain, and Goodnight, Dear and Sweet Dreams. In both, individual chapters of 2-3 pages are dedicated to a character or two characters, and move slowly linearly through a linked event: a rainy evening, and people reflecting on their lives during it; an evening / morning during which each reflect on a dream they’re having or have had. That aforementioned hyperfocus is admittedly something manga / anime loves to do on occasion, but even at 2-3 pages, this feels especially indulgent, like we’re getting some cutting room concepts for each character, baked into the framework. It’s not wholly without merit in that sense: some of this is nice flavor, it’s just that that’s all it is / can be. Additionally, at the time this was released, it was a flashback to earlier in the character’s experiences (post Eren-Titan, but before a lot of subsequent discoveries), and so it has the cutesy quaintness of hinting at later events.

I like the idea; I super appreciate having this not only translated, but added in as an extra, but I also imagine something like this works best / better in small amounts, and maybe even seeded into the series slightly closer to the actual chronology.