幽麗塔

YUUREITOU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
9
RELEASE
October 24, 2014
CHAPTERS
80

DESCRIPTION

In the 1950s, an old woman was brutally murdered on the face of a clock tower by her adopted daughter. Two years later, the clock tower is known as the 'ghost tower' and it is supposedly haunted. Through an unusual series of events, a young NEET man named Amano Taichi is attacked by someone or something in the same clock tower, and finds himself bound to the clock face to be killed in the same way as the old woman. Luckily for Amano, he doesn't meet the same fate. He's rescued by a mysterious person who claims his name is Tetsuo.

CAST

Tetsuo Sawamura
Taichi Amano
Marube Doukurou

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Tressym
95/100
Queer noir mystery with compelling atmosphere and main character
__MINOR SPOILER__

That's not one of the wholesome queer manga, be warned about that.
But then again... what would you expect looking at the genres and the synopsis.

I even don't really know how to write a review on this without spoilering, but I try to.
The Ghost Tower / Yuureitou is a manga that I have never or very rarely seen in that form and truly one of a kind. It's a perfect mix of a noir-mystery and queer horror that is written in such a compelling manner. The atmosphere itself is mesmerzing and fascinating. The whole setting is made for me, because I'm a sucker for all things steampunk, dark academia and co. and the setting including the clothes people wear: I love it. This thing is made for me haha. chefskiss
Also the mystery was a lot of fun to read and I enjoyed how queer this manga has been and it felt it's a very natural part of it, but it's also hard describing the story in detail since I don't want to set a spoiler-tag either.
Let me conclude the whole manga by describing it as beautifully fucked up; in a very good way I want to add. The mangaka also surely knows how to pull off an intense horror atmosphere.
In general, I really need more queer horror manga, if that's actually a thing and not only a rare phenomenon of the very few manga I stumbled into ...?

The second main character Tetsuo is absolutely compelling too and really fascinating to read. He is complex, very charming and interesting and has a lot of grey morality to him, but he is also to me as a reader very approachable and I can understand where his motivations are coming from. He is capable of some gruesome actions, but we also see he's anything but a monster either... And damn, he's also looking fine af.
And while the protagonist is Taichi and he's okay as a protagonist, Tetsuo really steals the spotlight from him. Not saying that Taichi is a bad protagonist tho, I've been okay with him and he developed an interesting relationship with Tetsuo.

What I don't like is how Tetsuo's body pre-transitioning is portrayed in a sexualized way and I have mixed feelings about this. I mean, sure quite lot of trans and non-binary people, including me, don't really have strong body dysphoria and liked their body before they transitioning (and I don't even know, if I plan to), but I don't know if I got the impression that Tetsuo is comfortable with this. He gives me mixed feelings about this.
I still might add that this sexualization doesn't look like in any random, cheap ecchi. It rather has a rough and mature tone to it and reminds me more of actual noir-media too. It's not that typical panty shot or anything you would typically see in most ecchis, and also emphasizes a lot on portraying Tetsuo's charme and personality.

Aside that, I overall like how the manga handles the trans topic and includes it into its story. Tetsuo being a trans man is an important part of the story and his character motivations aka why he does things he does (without going into spoiler territory), but there is much more to Tetsuo's whole character too, and he's beautiful and fascinating in lot of ways to me, while not being the most morally white protagonist either.
There are also some other interesting characters as well, which are not all likeable either, but they are compelling and interesting too, so you will see for yourself.

The art itself adds a lot to the noir-atmosphere that I enjoyed a lot, and looks absolutely gorgeous. It's fitting the manga's themes and genres a lot, but it's not too dark and edgy per se, it's just... yes, a bit more realistic, not photo-realistic tho, with a bit of dark grey tones that are fitting the noir setting and the mystery and of course the murders.

Aside from some minor issues, I fell in love with this manga.

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