Me Gumi No Daigo

Our hero is Asahina Daigo, a young man fresh out of school and inaugurated into Company "Me," a firefighting unit in an area known for its lack of fires (which gives Company "Me" a slacker image). Daigo is not particularly heroic; he's overly competitive against his rivals, naive, myopic, inexperienced, short-tempered, and is often off in la-la land with a spaced-out expression on his face.

But something happens to Daigo when he's in a real emergency. His eyes become bright and sharp and intense; he does and says things he hardly recognizes later; he does crazy things that no one, including himself, would expect. And as a result, he saves lives: families', children's, fellow firefighters', animals' --- in raging fires, in flooded waters, and all sorts of precarious situations. He is almost possessed by a spirit that somehow knows of lives in danger, and which somehow manages to always save them.

Through the developing story, the reader has watched as Daigo at first retreats in fear from his actions. His crazy actions unnerve not only his colleagues (which is not good in Japanese society), but also himself. Gradually, though, he has come to realize that he loves the action; risking his own life is when he feels truly alive. But, just recently (late 1997), Daigo has suddenly realized that it's as if some part of his "soul" is missing: all his almost suicidal actions, his daring plans and dangerous rescues, have been done without the motive of helping others. He does rescue for the thrill of that brief shining moment where life and death are balanced --- but not for the sake of saving others. He doesn't even feel happy when he has saved the lives of people or animals; only now does he realize that this is a distinct lack of something.

How to resolve this strange realization? Daigo, a careless, brooding young man, recently reconciled to his job, but now increasingly aware of something missing in himself.... Eventually he gains a much deeper insight into himself, and he comes to accept himself as he is; but the development of his character is the real entertainment of this series.

But it is not just Daigo whose character we see in newer and increasingly more interesting light. One by one, we receive insights into the people around Daigo, and what we see is not what we (or at least Daigo) expect.

• Daigo's boss Gomi is a quiet, soft-spoken, cap-wearing man who turns out to have saved Daigo's life years before in a fire; the cap serves to hide terrible scars. Daigo at one point notices that Gomi leaves work every day promptly at quitting time, unlike other people who stay to do extra work; this irritates Daigo no end. So Daigo follows Gomi and watches as his boss takes a leisurely stroll through the neighborhood ... talking to people about fire safety, watching for fire hazards, and catching unattended fires. In other words, Daigo discovers the main reason Company Me's territory is so unusually free of fires is due to the quiet, uncelebrated work of one man, who stops fires before they can occur.

• In another story, one of Daigo's coworkers watches in disbelief as Daigo drives a pump truck through the side of a building to reach trapped rescue workers. This is unheard of: Daigo is clearly disobedient, unwilling to follow Procedure, illogical, impulsive, unpredictable, nearly insane, and obviously unfit to be a firefighter (crimes made all the worse because this is conformist Japan) --- yet, that very craziness has, beyond all reason, just saved numerous lives. Now to the point of not knowing right from wrong any more, Daigo's friend suddenly also "snaps" --- and he stands up to claim full blame for the pump truck, thus keeping Daigo's actions from becoming public knowledge (which would've been bad). He is suspended from work for several days, until Daigo owns up to his actions (how he did so is another story).

• Ms. Ochiai is a high school science teacher who had once taught Daigo; now she is vaguely his love interest. In one episode, she witnesses him doing a particularly brave but suicidal rescue. When he returns to safety, she, with tears streaming down her face, slaps him in front of the gathered crowd of gawkers and media. It isn't until many episodes later that he actually learns the true motivation behind the slap. It wasn't so much that she was afraid for his life, but that she was feeling her own failings. How was it, she wondered, that he could risk his life for others' sakes, while she was failing to pursue her own childhood dreams? She had long wanted to become a famous naturalist, by perhaps discovering a new species of insect in Japan --- and yet she had somehow given up on the dream. Seeing Daigo, she suddenly saw the contrast, and was ashamed. (But this is also when Daigo realizes that everyone thinks he is acting out of altruism, instead of just for the thrill of it.)

• Ara is a high-ranking official of the Rescue Team, whose orange-suited members are considered an elite firefighting task force. Normally cold in a clammy, fish-like way, Ara becomes excited when he sees Daigo in action. It turns out that Ara, in his younger days in the Rescue Team, had the same "danger sense" as Daigo. In fact, Ara tests Daigo by secretly rigging a trap for him in a practice exercise, but Daigo unknowingly avoids the trap by getting the sudden, inexplicable, and mysteriously fortuitous urge to go to the bathroom. Ara is intrigued to see this. But in a real emergency, Ara suddenly realizes this about Daigo: Daigo's sixth sense and instinctive drive to save lives is more than Ara had bargained for; it defies notions of safety far beyond what Ara is willing to handle. Ara suddenly sees Daigo as a dangerous wild card, to be feared and avoided. But Daigo has been called back to work with the Rescue Team, so the two are sure to interact again in the future....

Of course, there is plenty of action, too. As noted above, it's not battle violence, but the thrill of the battle against fire, against impending disaster --- yet even more than that, it's the thrill of wondering what new and strange action Daigo will perform next.

If there is one irritating thing about the manga, however, it's witnessing the awe and confusion that others feel when they watch Daigo in action --- over and over again. It's the usual shonen/boys' manga problem that the hero must always be (at some point) admired and respected in some way by other characters. But the psychological complexity and intrigue more than make up for this minor irritation.

What helps make this manga so refreshing is that it doesn't go into the weird stuff; it instead just shows how people deal with it in their daily lives. While the manga has ended (on a note that I wasn't very fond of, but oh well), it still stands out as one of the most psychologically interesting manga to have run in Shonen Sunday in recent memory.

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