Rocket Bomber - article - Manga Moveable Feast - manga - Emma MMF: Daily Diary - Vols. 7 & 10

Emma, vols. 7 & 10
Writer & Artist: Kaoru Mori
Published by: CMX

Vol. 7
280 (265) pages.
Vintage: 2006. US edition Mar 2008.
isbn 9781401217372

Vol. 10: Chapters 18, 19, and “The Final Chapter”
total volume: 240 (228) pages; the selected chapters comprise 99 pages.
Vintage: 2008. US edition Dec. 2009
isbn 9781401220723

Original Language: Japanese
Orientation: Right to Left
Translation & Adaptation: Sheldon Drzka
Lettering: Janice Chiang
Design: Larry Berry
Assistant Editor: Sarah Farber
Editor: Jim Chadwick

Publisher’s Rating: Teen Plus, for “Nudity & Suggestive Situations”

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So.

[*ahem*] Spoilers!

It’s going to be hard, this far into a series and this close to the end (yes, 364 pages is “close to the end”) to discuss the work without giving a bit of the show away. This is why the commentary portion of Daily Diary Vol 6 was so very terse (some of you might have considered that an improvement) but we’re going to dive right in and give the remainder of Emma all due care and proper consideration.

If you haven’t finished the series and didn’t want to spoil anything, this sentence would be an excellent place to stop reading. Here, go read what everyone else has to say about Emma

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Back in volume 6 (chapters 38-41) Emma was abducted from the Haworth estate — and since a letter from “William” was used as a pretence to get her out in the open, late at night, it must be presumed someone of the Jones or Campbell [anti-Emma] factions saw fit to just remove the troublesome maid from England. Emma was forced to write a fairwell letter to William saying only that she would be going to America.

Soon after volume 7 opens, we see Emma in the new world. She’s despondent, but still breathing and walking, and resigned, manages to find a little work — a way to eat.

William, on the other hand, isn’t going to let an ocean or a lack of either facts or clues deter him: he will find Emma.

Of course, he has to chase her down after he finds her, but still.

The hard part wasn’t falling in love. The hard part wasn’t exchanging letters on the sly, or slipping out to the Crystal Palace for a lovely afternoon, and evening, and a moonlight kiss. The hard part isn’t the storybook romance: What’s difficult is trust, and vulnerability, and openess, but above all trust.

I include so much of this chapter as scans because this is the real turning point. Mori could have cut the story off here, after the drama of an abduction and the adventure of a race to America and the heartfelt reunion — cap it with 16 pages of dénouement, a wedding, a bit with the villian getting his just deserts and the fairy-tale happily ever after. But the story doesn’t end here; we’ve chapters and chapters to go.

This relationship is going to take work, real effort on the part of both William and Emma, in their different ways. There is something very real, and very modern, about the relationship in Emma — and this is going to carry through not just through the rest of volume 7 (and it’s ending, intended at one time to also be the series ending) but even into volume 10, when the fairy-tale wedding finally comes after hundreds of pages of side stories, there is still a touch of bittersweet: the harshness of the outside world that can’t quite be overcome, even with love.

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Choices have consequences.

William’s road, and the Jones’s, will perhaps be tougher because he must fight to change both public perception and overcome the anymosity of that aristocratic bastard, the Viscount Campbell. Emma’s battle is personal, but she has allies: Dorothea Meredith, Emma’s former employer, and Aurelia Jones (“Mrs. Trollope” and William’s mother — that was the reveal at the end of volume 4, for those keeping score at home). Both women are a tad eccentric as well; they’ll be good tutors for our Miss Emma.

Much as Mrs. Stownar once taught a flower girl, plucked off the streets, how to become a perfect maid, I think we can see how Mesdames Meredith and Jones will be able to help vault that same lovely young woman into society. Eventually.

And actually, that’s where Mori leaves us (at the end of volume 7): Just as the journey of Emma & William begins, full of promise, and the promise of hardships, but mostly with hope. No happy ending yet.

##

And years pass, both in the narrative and also for fans: volume 10 hadn’t even come out in Japan yet when CMX released volume 7 to us in the States, and many readers (not aware of more to come) took Mori at her word: The End, done in seven. The promise of ‘side-stories’ did little to allay or alloy that conviction, and we let it soak in. I went back and re-read vols 1-7, all in an afternoon (though a bit more slowly, savouring the art, lingering a bit) and thought quite a bit about what the ending meant, and why it was actually a pretty good place to end the story.

[that is to say: it left you wondering. the reader could fill in the gaps. one wanted more but was left just a bit hungry, just a bit curious. a sophistocated manga fan knows it’s not always happy endings, but after seven volumes it was… quite nice.]

Oh, who am I kidding? We want a wedding and kids and grandkids and happily-ever-after, dammit!

It took a few years, but eventually, we got it — in fact, if the other volumes were set in 1895 (which is either the general consensus or just what we all read on Wikipedia) then it took at least 5 years for Emma & William to overcome enough of their mutual obstacles to get to a wedding. An exact year isn’t given, but it’s strongly hinted to be 1901 (Victoria died in Jan. of that year) and the Meredith and Jones children would be quite a bit older if much more than 5 years had passed.

This is the payoff. Old friends, new relationships, a twist or two: these last hundred pages are a lot of fun. Once again, I find myself wanting to just scan all of it. Yes, you should buy this. In fact, I’m going to make you buy it: I’m not scanning the wedding dress [dripping with lace, and a bouquet that is practically a waterfall of roses] or what Dorothea is wearing [ravishing!] or what the youngest — Vivi, Colin, Erich, & Ilse — all look like after growing up *just* a bit more [so cute! and young Vivi is turning into quite the heartbreaker] — or Grace’s husband (and baby) or Hakim’s aeroplane or the quiet garden church…

I’ll tease you, just a bit:

Here’s the reception and buffet, before the guests fall on it like vultures

And of course there’s dancing

While the end of volume 7 was intellectually satisfying and certainly could have been the end — having volume 10 hits all the right notes and gives one the warm fuzzies and stupid smiles, and maybe even a tear or two…

But before you think I’ve gone soft in the head: a final word.

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