The Poe Clan
The Poe Clan 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 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 genre, and vampire literature.
Synopsis
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" 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."
Primary characters
;Edgar Portsnell;Marybelle Portsnell
;Alan Twilight
Development
Context
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, 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 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 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.
Original production and publication
Hagio made her debut as a manga artist in 1969; by 1972 she was still considered as a novice, and thus was only permitted by her editor to publish short one-shots. Hagio originally conceived of The Poe Clan as a trilogy, with each part consisting of roughly one hundred pages and set respectively in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. In order to publish the story under these editorial constraints, Hagio adopted two strategies: first, she began writing The Poe Clan as a series of one-shots that functioned as standalone stories, but which featured serial-like interrelated narratives and recurring characters. Second, she focused early chapters of The Poe Clan on Marybelle and other female characters, as shōjo manga stories featuring male protagonists were less readily accepted in this era.In the February 1972 issue of Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, Hagio announced that she would begin publishing a story in the magazine on vampirism; the announcement took the form of an illustrated poem depicting Edgar and Marybelle entwined. Limpid Locks of Silver, the first chapter of what would become The Poe Clan, was published in the subsequent March 1972 issue. Hagio wrote several other unrelated manga one-shots in the next several issues of the magazine before publishing the second chapter of The Poe Clan in July 1972. Upon the publication of the third chapter in August 1972, Yamamoto realized that Hagio was creating a serialization; faced with this fait accompli, he allowed The Poe Clan to continue as an official serial, permitting Hagio to freely publish her originally planned trilogy.
Hagio concluded her original trilogy in July 1973, but began conceiving of new chapters for the series during its serialization; she spent the next year developing new ideas for The Poe Clan before launching her next serialization, The Heart of Thomas, in May 1974. In June 1974, Shogakukan launched its literary imprint Flower Comics, which publishes tankōbon editions of shōjo manga serialized in the company's magazines; The Poe Clan was the first manga series to be released under the imprint. The tankōbon edition of The Poe Clan sold out its initial print run of 30,000 copies in three days, an unprecedented sales volume at the time for a shōjo manga series that had not been adapted into an anime. Shogakukan encouraged Hagio to conclude the then-unpopular The Heart of Thomas to focus on The Poe Clan, though Hagio insisted on continuing the series.
Hagio completed The Heart of Thomas in December 1974; in that same issue, Bessatsu Shōjo Comic published a new illustrated poem by Hagio announcing the publication of nine new chapters of The Poe Clan. The series resumed publication in January 1975, with eight chapters published in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic and one chapter in Shūkan Shōjo Comic, with the final chapter of the series published in June 1976.
Revival
Following the conclusion of The Poe Clan in 1976, Hagio repeatedly declined requests to create new chapters of the series. Upon turning 60 years old in 2009, Hagio began to fear that she would no longer be able to write manga due to declining health, and was convinced by her friend and science fiction writer Baku Yumemakura to create, a one-shot sequel to The Poe Clan. Haru no Yume was published on May 28, 2016, in the July issue of Shogakukan's manga magazine Flowers, marking the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the original series. Shogakukan printed 50,000 copies of the issue, an increase from the magazine's normal circulation of 33,000; the issue sold out in one day regardless, prompting a second printing of 15,000 issues. Hagio subsequently wrote an additional chapter of Haru no Yume, which was published in the May 2017 issue of Flowers; both chapters were compiled as a collected volume published in July 2017.Hagio has continued to create additional sequels to The Poe Clan following the conclusion of Haru no Yume:
- Poe no Ichizoku: Unicorn, which began serialization in the May 2018 issue of Flowers before going on hiatus after the July 2018 issue. The series returned in the March 2019 issue, and concluded in the June 2019 issue. Unicorn was collected as a hardcover released in July 2019.
- Poe no Ichizoku: Himitsu no Hanazono, the first chapter of which was published in Flowers in the May 2019 issue. The series immediately went on hiatus, and returned in the June 2020 issue. Its second and last volume shipped in November 2021.
- Poe no Ichizoku: Getsuyōbi wa Kirai, a short comedic one-shot, was published in the July 2020 issue of Flowers on May 28, 2020.
- Poe no Ichizoku: Ao no Pandora, which began serialization in the July 2022 issue of Flowers on May 27, 2022.