Welcome to Double Take, a column dedicated to highlighting different comics and each’s merits through a discussion between two veterans of the comic site space. One is yours truly, the person behind the Eisner Award-losing SKTCHD, David Harper. The other is friend of the site and the Eisner Award-winning comics critic Oliver Sava.

Here’s a secret about this column. It’s a very mild one. Oliver and I alternate who picks each month’s subject for this series, and sometimes, those picks are very impulse driven. Take this edition’s focus, which is the first volume of Kazumi Yamashita’s manga series Land over at Yen Press. It was my pick, and when we first were discussing what should be next, it just so happened to be the same day I bought this book simply because I loved the cover.

And that’s why this is the comic we’re discussing this month.

So, what’s it about? I’d share the solicit, but honestly, I consider it a spoiler, so here’s the briefest of explanations adapted from Yen Press’ site. In a village where all residents die upon reaching fifty lives a girl named An, whose twin sister (also named An) was sacrificed to the ‘other world’ that lay beyond. That’s the basics, but it’s an incredibly sprawling story that involves a society that does everything it can to please four gods that watch them as they live, the cost of customs, and some wild and unexpected turns that spring from that fateful choice to sacrifice a young girl with an “evil countenance.” 

There’s a lot of room to explore because the first volume is 658 pages, and that’s a lot considering this comic almost never takes a breath. But is that a good thing? Did my whim-based decision to talk about a recent purchase curse us like the wrong look did for An’s older sister? 

There’s only one way to find out.

One last note, though. We do get into spoilers for the twist from the latter half of the book. I will note when that’s coming. If you would prefer to avoid any of Land’s mystery being revealed in advance, that’s when you’ll want to bow out.

David Harper: Oliver, this is our first foray into manga. I’m admittedly a newer convert, but a significant one, as my favorites from that space are all-timers for me. Before we get into Land, I wanted to ask: What kind of manga reader are you? Is it a substantial part of your comic-reading diet, or is it more secondary?

Oliver Sava: It’s definitely secondary, largely because of time constraints. I already have a lot of difficulty keeping up with the books I want to read from U.S. publishers, so the international stuff gets pushed to the back burner. There are a couple exceptions, specifically Witch Hat Atelier and Yotsuba&!, but the sporadic release schedule of those books makes it easy to stay current. (Side note: the next volume of Yotsuba&! is finally coming out in January after a four-year wait.)

Thanks to you, I’ve become a pretty big Keigo Shinzō fan this year, burning through Tokyo Alien Bros and Hirayasumi. I have to shout out my local library for keeping their manga extremely well stocked, it was how I got my hands on Land as well. This first volume is a beast, and while you’re right that it has a lot of momentum, it’s also extremely decompressed, with most of the action happening over the course of a few days. There are a couple of flashback chapters that give us necessary backstory, but it’s really about what happens immediately after the two separated Ans cross paths later in childhood.

The first half of the book is all about immersing the reader in this culture of paranoia and dread, but it didn’t really hook me on a plot or character level. I was mostly admiring Yamashita’s cartooning, and then I hit the huge reveal at the midway point that completely changed everything I thought I knew about the story and gave me the hook I needed. What was your experience with those earlier chapters and learning about the book’s mythology? Did you find it more compelling?