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The Poe Clan
The Poe Clan (Japanese: ポーの一族, Hepburn: Pō no Ichizoku) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Moto Hagio. It was initially serialized in the manga magazines Bessatsu Shōjo Comic and Shūkan Shōjo Comic from 1972 to 1976, while a revival of the series has been serialized in Flowers since 2016. The Poe Clan is composed of a series of non-chronological stories set between the 18th and 21st centuries that follow the life of Edgar Portsnell, a teenage vampire.
The manga has been collected into seven tankōbon volumes by the publishing house Shogakukan, and was the first shōjo manga series to be published by the company in this format. The Poe Clan has been adapted multiple times, notably as a radio drama, a series of CD audio dramas, a live-action television drama, and a Takarazuka Revue stage play. Fantagraphics Books licensed the manga for an English-language release in North America to be published in two omnibus volumes, the first of which was released in 2019. The Poe Clan was a critical and commercial success upon its release, winning the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1975. The series significantly influenced shōjo manga, the shōnen-ai (male-male romance) genre, and vampire literature.
The Poe Clan is composed of a series of non-chronological stories set in Europe, primarily England and Germany, between the 18th and 21st centuries. The series chronicles the life of Edgar Portsnell and his two traveling companions: his younger sister Marybelle Portsnell, and his friend Alan Twilight. All three are members of the titular Poe clan, a group of immortal "vampirnellas" (vampires) who do not age and subsist on human blood.
The clan maintains a strict code of only converting humans when they have reached adulthood, but by a confluence of circumstances, Edgar is made into a vampirnella at the age of fourteen. Edgar finds he is isolated from both the human world as a result of his immortality, and from the adult vampirnellas of the clan due to his eternally-teenaged body. Overcome by loneliness, he converts Marybelle when she is thirteen, only to find his loneliness replaced by the remorse of having taken his sister's humanity; he vows to dedicate his life to her happiness and well-being.
Several decades pass and Marybelle meets and falls in love with Alan, who at the time is a human teenager. Shortly thereafter, she and Edgar's adoptive parents are killed by humans who discover their vampirnella nature. Edgar is overwhelmed by grief; Alan, who has himself fallen into despair upon learning that he is to be wed in an arranged marriage, agrees to be converted by Edgar. The two boys form a close companionship, and the series follows their exploits over the subsequent century. While the particulars of Edgar and Alan's adventures vary, the series broadly explores the concept of time from the conflicting perspectives of mortality and immortality: the former represented by the humans they encounter, to whom they represent the dream of eternal youth; and the latter represented by Edgar, who must live with "the loneliness of everlasting life."
Japan has no tradition of vampires in literature and other media; the archetype was imported from works of western fiction beginning in the 1930s. Science fiction critic Mari Kotani has argued that in Japan, the vampire as a specifically western figure represents a hostile "other," particularly following the Second World War and subsequent occupation of Japan by the United States. However, Kotani notes that in shōjo manga (girls' comics), the west is often depicted as idealized and utopian, typically a result of the cultural influence of Hollywood cinema, American literature, and western fashion; the figure of the vampire, as a western cultural product, is thus viewed positively in this shōjo context.
In her youth, Moto Hagio disliked stories featuring vampires, as they were depicted as "villains who attack human beings." In 1962, the manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori published the one-shot (single-chapter) manga Mist, Roses and Stars, a science fiction story about the tragic life of a vampire girl, in the manga magazine Shōjo Club. Hagio became inspired by the manga, and began to conceive of her own "beautiful vampire story" about a vampire who "long[s] to return to a normal human existence" but is "rejected by humanity."
In 1971 Hagio published The November Gymnasium, a one-shot about an all-boys school written as an early adaptation of her later series The Heart of Thomas. The story made Hagio realize that she preferred writing stories about male protagonists, and she thus decided to have the protagonist of her vampire story be a boy. She created the term "vampirnella" after misreading a word while searching for terms that could be used as a substitute for "vampire"; attracted to the vaguely Italian sound of her invention, she adopted it for the series. At the same time, Hagio had developed an interest in costumes; she began to write The Poe Clan after becoming inspired by the idea of a story about an immortal protagonist who wears the attire of different historical periods throughout their life.
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The Poe Clan
The Poe Clan (Japanese: ポーの一族, Hepburn: Pō no Ichizoku) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Moto Hagio. It was initially serialized in the manga magazines Bessatsu Shōjo Comic and Shūkan Shōjo Comic from 1972 to 1976, while a revival of the series has been serialized in Flowers since 2016. The Poe Clan is composed of a series of non-chronological stories set between the 18th and 21st centuries that follow the life of Edgar Portsnell, a teenage vampire.
The manga has been collected into seven tankōbon volumes by the publishing house Shogakukan, and was the first shōjo manga series to be published by the company in this format. The Poe Clan has been adapted multiple times, notably as a radio drama, a series of CD audio dramas, a live-action television drama, and a Takarazuka Revue stage play. Fantagraphics Books licensed the manga for an English-language release in North America to be published in two omnibus volumes, the first of which was released in 2019. The Poe Clan was a critical and commercial success upon its release, winning the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1975. The series significantly influenced shōjo manga, the shōnen-ai (male-male romance) genre, and vampire literature.
The Poe Clan is composed of a series of non-chronological stories set in Europe, primarily England and Germany, between the 18th and 21st centuries. The series chronicles the life of Edgar Portsnell and his two traveling companions: his younger sister Marybelle Portsnell, and his friend Alan Twilight. All three are members of the titular Poe clan, a group of immortal "vampirnellas" (vampires) who do not age and subsist on human blood.
The clan maintains a strict code of only converting humans when they have reached adulthood, but by a confluence of circumstances, Edgar is made into a vampirnella at the age of fourteen. Edgar finds he is isolated from both the human world as a result of his immortality, and from the adult vampirnellas of the clan due to his eternally-teenaged body. Overcome by loneliness, he converts Marybelle when she is thirteen, only to find his loneliness replaced by the remorse of having taken his sister's humanity; he vows to dedicate his life to her happiness and well-being.
Several decades pass and Marybelle meets and falls in love with Alan, who at the time is a human teenager. Shortly thereafter, she and Edgar's adoptive parents are killed by humans who discover their vampirnella nature. Edgar is overwhelmed by grief; Alan, who has himself fallen into despair upon learning that he is to be wed in an arranged marriage, agrees to be converted by Edgar. The two boys form a close companionship, and the series follows their exploits over the subsequent century. While the particulars of Edgar and Alan's adventures vary, the series broadly explores the concept of time from the conflicting perspectives of mortality and immortality: the former represented by the humans they encounter, to whom they represent the dream of eternal youth; and the latter represented by Edgar, who must live with "the loneliness of everlasting life."
Japan has no tradition of vampires in literature and other media; the archetype was imported from works of western fiction beginning in the 1930s. Science fiction critic Mari Kotani has argued that in Japan, the vampire as a specifically western figure represents a hostile "other," particularly following the Second World War and subsequent occupation of Japan by the United States. However, Kotani notes that in shōjo manga (girls' comics), the west is often depicted as idealized and utopian, typically a result of the cultural influence of Hollywood cinema, American literature, and western fashion; the figure of the vampire, as a western cultural product, is thus viewed positively in this shōjo context.
In her youth, Moto Hagio disliked stories featuring vampires, as they were depicted as "villains who attack human beings." In 1962, the manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori published the one-shot (single-chapter) manga Mist, Roses and Stars, a science fiction story about the tragic life of a vampire girl, in the manga magazine Shōjo Club. Hagio became inspired by the manga, and began to conceive of her own "beautiful vampire story" about a vampire who "long[s] to return to a normal human existence" but is "rejected by humanity."
In 1971 Hagio published The November Gymnasium, a one-shot about an all-boys school written as an early adaptation of her later series The Heart of Thomas. The story made Hagio realize that she preferred writing stories about male protagonists, and she thus decided to have the protagonist of her vampire story be a boy. She created the term "vampirnella" after misreading a word while searching for terms that could be used as a substitute for "vampire"; attracted to the vaguely Italian sound of her invention, she adopted it for the series. At the same time, Hagio had developed an interest in costumes; she began to write The Poe Clan after becoming inspired by the idea of a story about an immortal protagonist who wears the attire of different historical periods throughout their life.