Ecology as an episteme has been gaining prominence since the turn of the century, with environmental activism being on the rise. Events such as the Rio Earth Summit (1992), the signing of the Kyoto Protocol (1997), numerous Youth Climate marches, have been landmarks in the planetary climatic history. Post-pandemic, human society might have become a tad more conscious about their ecological responsibilities. Environmental concerns are receiving more visibility, especially with the exponential progression of social media platforms.¹ The genre of post-apocalyptic science fiction films (live action and animated) has become popular. For instance, acclaimed Japanese anime directors such as Hayao Miyazaki (founder of Studio Ghibli) and Makoto Shinkai have been active in disseminating ›green‹ narratives through their cinematic oeuvre.

In this context, I shall endeavor to engage with the ›mode‹ of comic, in reference to a specific aspect of narratives pertaining to ecology. I propose to study select graphic tales which engage with the specific concern of aquatic crisis and/or degradation of marine ecosystems. Within a spectrum of visual texts across genre created by artists from various parts of the globe, I intend to critically engage with these ideas: (i) how graphic narratives grapple with the threats to aquatic ecosystems, (ii) representation of the polemics of resistance in the face of said threats, (iii) how the intervention of magic/fantasy/supernatural aids resistance struggle, (iv) the possibility of an ethos of the »aqua graphic«, both in terms of verbality and visuality.

To determine and qualify an ›aqua graphic essence‹, the texts to be closely perused are Tropic of the Sea (1990) by Satoshi Kon, River of Stories (1994) by Orijit Sen, Children of the Sea (2005-11) by Daisuke Igarashi, The Rime of the Modern Mariner (2012) by Nick Hayes, and Carpe Fin (2019) by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas.

The term ›aqua graphic‹ can be considered as an aesthetic subset under the generic umbrella of ecological graphic narratives. In my proposed definition, for a text to be qualified as an ›aqua graphic‹, it must have three key features. Firstly, it has to be invested in environmental concerns related specifically to water and marine biology. Secondly, it should have a lucid visual stylistic schema that resembles flowing water. In this regard, one relevant example would be the use of the medium of watercolor itself, which elicits an optical smoothness. And finally, it must be life-affirming and sustainable in its approach, drawing upon the ubiquitous adage, ›water is life‹.

When it comes to ecology, there has been a voluminous discourse about ›green‹ purposefulness, peace, and politics. However, Sidney I. Dobrin in the book titled Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative opines regarding the ocean’s possibilities as the reservoir of sustenance:

Contemporary environmental conversations and some oceanographic discussions describe the ocean as the place from where human salvation will likely emerge in the wake of environmental destruction; others point out that life on Earth is dependent upon the health of the ocean. The ocean is strange and promising all in one breath. (Dobrin, 1)

Situating the ocean as an original repository of vitality, Dobrin also insists that ecocriticism has always had a ›land based imperative‹, eliding over the ocean and other aquatic bodies. That is why, environmentalism, primarily denoted to be a ›green‹ movement often obscures the ›blue‹ or the marine pertinence. To elaborate further, Dobrin states:

Blue ecocriticism takes as its objectives the tasks of overcoming ecocriticism’s ocean deficit disorder and understanding the implications of claiming such as an ecocritical deficit, including understanding the historical underpinnings of that disorder, extending an ocean-centric critical view, and disrupting the traditional land-centered approach of ecocriticism. (Dobrin, 74)

The chosen graphic texts perhaps represent erasure of the aquatic concern. Satoshi Kon’s Tropic of the Sea (1990) is an ecologically oriented manga narrative that weaves a fantastical tale concerning the humans and the mer-people, focusing on their symbiotic relationship. In the graphic novel titled River of Stories, Orijit Sen traces a real-life eco-activist movement at ground zero, vis-à-vis the destruction of a river ecology due to the construction of a massive dam, interweaved with indigenous, mythical folklore. In Daisuke Igarashi’s manga entitled Children of the Sea, a human girl is bestowed with the rare gift of friendship with two mutant boys, who give her an enchanted glimpse of the deep-sea realm, otherwise inaccessible to regular individuals. In a neo-fabular approach, Nick Hayes reinvents the Romantic saga of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in Rime of the Modern Mariner, wherein a sailor encounters eerie experiences during his sea voyage. Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas integrates the native art of his island in the North Pacific Ocean, Haida Gwaii, along with manga, wherein he narrates the misadventure of a man named Carpe who meets a maritime deity.

Pramod K. Nayar, in the article titled »The Climate of Change: Graphic Adaptation, The Rime of the Modern Mariner, and the Ecological Uncanny« mentions the major »three actors« involved in ecological concerns, »Scientists, environmentalist, and media«. Nayar further argues that the fourth actor is always left out, aka, the »literary scholar/critic«. To try and situate an ›aqua-graphical‹ intervention in the discourse of environmentalism might contribute to the participatory stance of the missing fourth, a lack that concerns Nayar. In this regard, graphic narratives are pertinent as they are the:

narrative mode that takes recourse to the medium of graphic novels, which combines both word and image, and is considered by many scholars as not only a form of literature today but also as a necessary development, in terms of form and medium, that responds to the needs of the present moment when trauma, human rights, violence and such subjects are part of public discourses and literary-cultural studies. (Nayar, 26)

Combining the verbal with the iconic, they emphasize the predominant concern regarding ecology, even in a mind that is unaware. Manga culture after the Second World War has been invested in ideas like peace, natural conservation, and ecological harmony. Yuki Masami, in the introduction to Ecocriticism in Japan mentions the three phases in which ecocritical discourse gained relevance in the nation: »ecocriticism in Japan began in the 1990s and since then it has developed with at least three different phases: the first phase focusing on translation, the second stage introducing comparative approaches, and the third involving ecocritical interventions in Japanese literature« (Yuki, 2). It is perhaps not surprising that the chosen manga titles pertain to the 1990s and afterwards; and can be considered as »ecological interventions in Japanese literature« and critical discourse. While there are many such texts, the ones chosen are relevant to the chosen context, i.e., ethos of the ›aqua graphic‹.

Waterborn(e) Manga

Japan has survived myriad disasters in the 20th century, both natural and man-made: nuclear bombings, the poisoning of Minamata Bay by the Chisso corporation, the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and more. Besides, Japanese society faced aggrandized alienation and identity crisis in the wake of the economic ›bubble burst‹ and recession of the 1990s. In this context, the more introverted and sensitive members of the technophilic society sought solace in nature. To cite an example, an audience familiar with the Studio Ghibli films would know that Hayao Miyazaki advocates the concept of furusato, or the longing for a pre-industrial Japan that possibly does not exist. Whether Miyazaki or Shinkai, their narratives’ foci have been discernibly ›green‹, much to the dismay of someone as Dobrin. However, Satoshi Kon’s Tropic of the Sea is conspicuously involved with aqua-marine concerns. Kon curates an enigmatic relationship between the mundane, land-based, human society and the extra-mundane, underwater mer-community in this manga. In a small coastal town named Amide, a Shinto priest’s family has been supposedly responsible for protecting a mermaid’s egg for generations. Every sixty years, the mermaid appears to collect the rare egg, and gifts the family’s chief with a new one to guard. If the egg is well cared for, the town is blessed with marine bounty, making the fishermen thrive. As one might be aware, Shinto is an animistic belief system that advocates faith in nature and natural spirits, including aquatic creatures. For instance, the wani is a sea dragon/alligator/shark that supposedly blessed maritime trade. Anthony Nanson in the book titled Storytelling and Ecology: Empathy, Enchantment and Emergence in the Use of Oral Narratives mentions in reference to such nature worshiping and pantheistic belief systems:

In diverse cultures elsewhere may be found a recurrent perspective that human beings exist in a network of relationships with an ecosystem understood to be permeated by various kinds of spiritual consciousness and energy, which are imputed to physically distinct entities like animals, plants, rocks and streams and also perceived to have a more intangible presence in the wind, the night, the sea and underground. (Nanson, 177-78)

In Amide, the mythical mer-community is revered by the older generations, who are more spiritually inclined. However, the more contemporary youngsters have their doubts regarding the persisting fable. To them, the mermaid’s existence is as elusive as the so-called magical contract that is apparently mutually beneficial. For instance, the male lead Yosuke’s father invites a construction mogul to transform the rural town by creating hospitals and other public facilities. Unfortunately, capitalist greed gets in the way of the ancient promise, disrupting the pre-existing symbiosis. Rather than developing sustainable public facilities on a manageable scale, the construction corporation envisions an aquatic amusement park called ›Marineland‹, which shall generate much more revenue. For that purpose, they undertake a series of blasts in the coastline, to mold the topography to their purpose. While some support the move, the others are in vehement opposition. Their disagreement is conceived out of ecological concern perhaps, but veiled as nostalgia and superstition, as many are unaware of the actual, long-term impact of such actions. It is not novel to imagine folklores or bad omens to keep manhandling of nature at bay. In the text, the omen becomes real when the veneer of accord is threatened. As humans celebrate the joyous trajectory of ›progress‹ that disrupts natural equilibrium, magic is invoked as a fail-safe mechanism. In the final chapter, the Amide coastline becomes barren when all aquatic life leaves the bay. Furthermore, the town is heavily damaged by a tsunami and is afloat with debris. The fantastical narrative colors the disaster as a consequence of not returning the egg to the mermaid by the correct hour. However, the tsunami could have been easily triggered by the series of explosions executed by the construction company in a sensitive tectonic zone.

Masami Yuki aptly observes that the concept of harmony itself is problematic. He mentions that ›Japanese societies in the twenty-first century may have taken advantage of a global tendency of seeing »harmony« as ecologically sound, thereby appropriating it, if not intentionally, to create an ecological self-image (Yuki, 9). The dynamics of the relationship between the mer and human are left undiscussed in the text, in the presumption that it is perfectly harmonious. While the mer philosophy is seemingly static, human beliefs are evolving and dynamic. The mer does not check in with the human caretaker at regular intervals to ensure the protection of her precious progeny. As a Shinto priest, Yosuke’s father fails to respect each natural existence and allows the egg to be mishandled, threatening the gestation period of the creature within, whether magical or otherwise. Yosuke loses his mother in a drowning accident, from which he is saved by the ear, even though their family is supposedly under the protection of the mer-people who rule the ocean. The mermaid’s egg is at once a site of harmony, in reference to perpetuating the symbiotic relationship, as well as resistance, wherein disaster ensues when the ecological equilibrium is threatened.

Yosuke manages to finally encounter the ancient mermaid because of the tsunami, connecting the mortal and the immortal realms. Yuki opines, »Waves connect, and as such, can be a good material metaphor, so to speak, for the far-reaching connectedness in which we live. Tsunami, or tidal waves, alone can prove the unexpected nearness of remote shores« (Yuki, 174). In terms of interconnectedness of the land and the aquatic spheres, there are several panels in the text wherein the ontic existence of the human characters is optically portrayed as being assimilated with the waves. The residents of Amide are familiar with aquatic entertainments such as swimming and diving. Feeling a sense of ›oneness‹ with water is commonplace for the townsfolk. In a particular panel of the manga, Yosuke dives off a cliff, planning to swim towards the island housing the mermaid’s shrine (Fig. 1). Quite interestingly, within the gestic space, Yosuke’s body appears suspended mid-air, as he jumps. Between the cliff and the island ahead, his corporeal entity is framed by the ocean. Taken out of context, it might be difficult to discern whether the character is diving, or floating atop the surface of the water with his face down. Caught between the land and the sea, Yosuke has supposedly become a part of the symbiotic nexus that sustains both the land and the sea. All these panels perhaps contribute to the proposed idea of ›aqua graphics‹, supposedly curated within the texts of choice.

In the cover image of the series, one can observe the three proposed parameters for ›aqua-graphics‹ (Fig. 2). Yosuke is the assumed keeper of the egg, responsible for protecting the land-water balance which has been threatened by the construction corporation. He dominates the forefront, with the mermaid’s egg in the background. The egg is the consolidation of future hope and continued promise of sustainability. Even though submerged underwater, Yosuke does not seem uncomfortable. Rather, his internal organs seem a palimpsest on the surface of the egg, his body being portrayed as partly translucent.

It seems that his corporeal entity is composed solely of water, providing the artwork with lucidity, which is the second parameter for my ›aqua graphic‹ premise. The visual scheme of the image is ubiquitously blue, representing the underwater life-force which sustains the coastal town, even after a disaster hits the coastline. The use of the color blue is quite significant in this context. Manga is usually published in monochromatic screentone. However, this particular image is conspicuously not in greyscale. Sidney I. Dobrin comments on the prevalence of the color blue when it comes to oceanic ecocriticism, which is perhaps relevant to the text under scrutiny:

The blue of blue ecocriticism stands as more dynamic than a simple metaphor for the ocean within the pairing of blue and ecocriticism/ecocomposition. Blue pours out as an intellectual transition in human environmental consciousness. Blue ecocriticism is named intentionally as such to imply not merely oceanic ecocriticism, but a more significant and more vital relationship between seeing the blue of ocean and ecocriticism. (Dobrin, 70)

Graphic Activism

While blue can be a visual metaphor, it also represents the principal concern regarding aquatic ecologies. Even though conceived surrounding a river rather than the ocean, a similar »intellectual transition in human environmental consciousness« that Dobrin mentions, is consistently present in Orijit Sen’s River of Stories. Considered to be the first graphic novel in English of Indian origin, it deals with the controversial ›Sardar Sarovar‹ project on the river Narmada, which marked one of the largest environmental movements in the 20th century in the Indian subcontinent. The dam which was inaugurated in 2017, has been contentious since its initiation. The edifice threatened to obliterate the natural habitat of the indigenous community who had been living in the Narmada valley for generations. Activist Medha Patkar took the lead role in the peaceful protest to protect the rights of the adivasi (indigenous/tribal) community. Orijit Sen imagines the trajectory of Narmada (changed to Rewa in the text) to be the keeper of intergenerational narratives. The river ensures the valley’s survival, and also makes sure that its existence perpetuates the oral chronicles to posterity. Weaving the creation myth of the indigenous people along with the reportage of the young journalist named Vishnu, River of Stories perhaps captures the ethos of the ›aqua-graphic‹ with its lucid stylistic approach. It is readily concerned with an immediate threat to the specific aquatic ecology, which would be engendered by the dam. The visual schemata consist of superimposing panels and speech bubbles, wherein multiple narratives coexist and sustain each other, like overlapping ripples.

In the folded splash page included in the text, one encounters the entire sketch of the biodiverse ecological system in the river valley (Fig. 3). In the top right corner of the page, Sen discloses that it is »a map of stories told and as yet untold«. In regard to oral mythology, Nanson mentions:

They’re the easiest stories to tell, because much of the work of shaping them has already been done by generations of folk transmission. However, just as different guilds of organisms – carnivores, herbivores, parasites, saprophytes – serve different functions in the ecosystem, so different genres of stories, including non-traditional ones, provide scope for different possibilities of response. (Nanson, 54)

Sen ascertains that the parallel stories have a potency for heteroglossic fluidity. On the top half of the aforementioned page, different panels representing different voices of protest have been juxtaposed. In the hyperframe created by Sen, the river takes the central stage of the gestic space. Along its banks, different areas are marked out as a part of the continuous landscape, demarcating the presence of rare flora and fauna. Spaces that are sacred to the local community are also charted out. For the third ›aqua-graphic‹ parameter, Sen makes sure that the river is represented as a major source of life. For instance, the entire visual course of the river is populated with fish, which sustains the pre-industrial community along the banks. On the extreme right of the ›map‹, Sen depicts the site of the dam, which would be responsible for the destruction of the rich ecology and the people who have lived on the land for ages. Upon asked about this particular page by Scroll, Sen responds:

… the map does more or less follow the course of the Narmada River, in terms of it starts from Amarkantak – or, rather, its traditional name Ambarkant, which is what the local people call it. So, it also geographically explains the whole story. It maps down other things as well – which animals are found there, which kind of trees and plants, which kind of medicinal herbs…This is all part of what the Andolan was documenting, they were trying to say that all of this will get lost. And there is not just the human costs, but there’s a huge environmental cost. It shows the Narmada valley as an ecosphere, and not just a river. (Sabhaney)

Narmada is certainly ›not just a river‹. Rather, it is revered as a maternal presence, much like ›Kujum Chantu‹, the divine mother Goddess from the adivasi myth. In similitude with the mermaid’s egg conceived by Kon in the previous series, Sen tries to capture the universe within the metaphorical face of ›Kujum Chantu‹. In the image, one witnesses the face of the ›everywoman‹ from the indigenous community representing the cosmic forces, wherein celestial bodies appear on the plane of her face (Fig. 4). She brings the cosmos into existence, including the river that flows through the valley. In the forefront, the story of ›Kujum Chantu‹ is melodiously narrated by Malgu ›Gayan‹ (singer), whose ballad is an uninterrupted tribute to the eco-mythological narratives that advocate sustainable living. Like the mermaid of Amide, the minstrel figure is also elusive. The reader is never quite sure if Malgu is a sole individual, or is an omniscient representative of generations of such singers in the valley.

The Bluest of them All

Felix Guattari in his idea of ›ecosophy‹, emphasizes on the multiplicity and coexisting heterogeneity of human subjectivity, environment, and society. He advocates that the relational parameters between the three are plural and dynamic. In the chosen texts, the relation between land water, humans, and the fantastic has been presented in a dynamic perspective. In this regard, Dobrin informs, supplementing the idea of the ›blue‹:

[The] ocean is not only blue and not always blue. In various times and places, ocean can be any color of the spectrum. Ocean’s color [is] dependent upon light, depth, angle of view, bottom composition, particulates, and so on. Ocean can be at times any shade of red, orange, amber, green, violet, blue, and black… even when blue, ocean is many hues of blue; it is never a constant. (Dobrin, 71)

While the first two texts indicate the possibility of ecosophy in the context of ›aqua-graphic‹, it is Daisuke Igarashi’s Children of the Sea, which is aligned the most towards a diverse ecophilosophical premise. The trope of the fantastic that augments the ecological concerns continues in the text. In this tale, young human female Ruka encounters two extraordinary boys, Umi and Sora, who have been raised by dugongs, a species of aquatic mammals. While the word Umi means ocean in Japanese, Sora means the sky. The boys are more suited to an aquatic existence, as their physique cannot adjust to the land. Without moisture, their skin dries up and starts to flake. They chase a meteor from outer space with an exceptional life force, submerged below the ocean. Igarashi conceives of a spectacular universe wherein the ocean and sky come together, in a synesthetic celebration of the cosmos, with the changing spectrum of colors of the ocean round the clock (as mentioned by Dobrin), the melody of the whale song which exposes a primeval form of communication, the feel of water on the skin while one does deep sea diving, the unearthly fragrance emitted by the meteor, the taste of lobster freshly caught from the sea and so on. In the anime adaptation poster of the manga series, one can observe that the lead character’s eyes are a shade of blue that matches the ocean exactly (Fig. 5). In the image, one can witness the resurgence of the ›blue‹, wherein the underwater visuality perhaps much resembles the famed ›starry night‹ by van Gogh.² Ruka’s father is a professional in the field of marine biology, who works at the local aquarium. Ruka is no stranger to the serene blue of the ocean, curated within limited spaces within the aquatic museum. There are several panels in the text wherein Ruka can be found pensively contemplating, standing in front of the tanks containing exotic creatures from the ocean. As the meteor becomes the centripetal force of the ocean, aquatic life from all across the globe travel towards it, emptying bays, beaches, aquariums, and reservoirs.

In another panel from the manga, one can decipher the luminescence from the phytoplankton from under the ocean, even within the monochromatic format (Fig. 6). The fluid visuality of the text is suited to the narrative, which situates the ocean as the harbinger of life, much beyond the plane of human intelligibility. In the text, an old sailor reminisces, »The song of the whale from the stars… the wind contains all the memories of the sea, by replacing it with words, we created and passed on poems and songs, but with words, you can only capture a tiny fraction of the wind… flooded emotions that cannot be transcripted.« In the text, as Ruka ingests a portion of the celestial meteor, her body becomes a metonymy for the oceanic cosmos itself. As she dives underwater and swims with marine life, she is given glimpses of deep-sea ecologies, which are mostly unreachable for human perception. For certain expanses of the text, it appears that Ruka does not have a problem breathing underwater, much like Umi and Sora.

While the boys are taken back and absorbed by the greater cosmos of the ocean wherein their narratives culminate, Ruka returns to land with newfound illumination. Even though not gifted with an amphibious physicality, her psyche is now the site of union for land and water. In the animated film version, as Ruka travels home by car, raindrops pellet the windows. Intriguingly, Ruka perceives the raindrops taking shapes of myriad marine creatures, especially once she has been familiar with it since childhood. Whether the unusual phenomenon actually occurs, or is just a figment of her imagination, one cannot be sure. But as Nanson points out, scientific materialism is not always necessary to validate such instances of »mythic perspective of the world« (Nanson, 177). The illusory nature of Kon’s mermaid, Sen’s mother-Goddess and Igarashi’s amphibious children augment the ecosophical polyphony, by adding a touch of magic to the context. Nanson further claims:

Ecocriticism can be keen to endorse the dominance of scientific materialism as a description of reality, owing to the urgency of asserting the scientific facts of ecology in the face of postmodernist and constructivist resistance to grand narratives […] with anti-environmentalist capitalism. However, in claiming a monopoly on truth, scientific materialism reproduces the framing of animistic perspectives as the delusions of people who need to be educated to know better. (Nanson, 178-179)

Aquatic Mythologies

Magic takes an ominous turn in Rime of the Modern Mariner by Nick Hayes. Inspired by the canonical ballad by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hayes creates a Lazarus-like seafarer who journeys to hell and back. However, the said hell is composed of debris, waste, and garbage, floating atop the surface of the ocean. Since it is mentioned that the character is traveling towards ›Old Japan‹, one might be instantaneously reminded of the great Pacific garbage drift. Nayar argues in this regard:

Texts communicating the possibility of eco-disaster and the future of mankind and other lifeforms, often offer extrapolations, some bizarre, of today’s science or lifestyle of human cultural practices (such as urbanism, hyperconsumption) in order to warn us that if we continue to live like this, the world will one day look like that. These literary and cultural texts replicate today’s world, so that it is at once recognizable and strange. (Nayar, 27)

The text can be qualified as an ›aqua-graphic‹ on every count perhaps. It readily concerns itself with the issue of water pollution. The visuality is free flowing and uses a palette of light, water-colorish blue. The artist does not keep the textual component locked up in speech bubbles. Rather, words and images intermingle across the narrative space.³ Undertaking this infernal journey, the sailor emerges wiser, genuinely concerned about nature, and aware of his own responsibilities. In the beginning of the text, he lives a plastic existence, chewing ›rubber sandwiches‹ and drinking coffee out of ›Styrofoam cups‹. Yet in the end, he transforms into an individual who appreciates the minute details of existence, such as a gentle breeze in the park, or the touch of water on his skin. After he is rescued by an island dweller who gives him the second lease on life, his cynical outlook changes to accommodate perspectives which are more optimistic.

Hayes writes the following lines in the text, hearkening back to the idea of the so-called authenticity of perception, as experienced by Ruka in Children of the Sea. Only this time, nature seems to address the concern by itself, affirming that the terror is real.

I’m no figment of your frontal lobe/ No children’s story ghost/ I am the real repercussion of Your hubristic human boast/ I am the blood of that beneath you/ The composite of time Such acid tears/ I wept for years/ But now you’ve burnt me dry/ Oh! You gambled with a chaos/ Whose cards you thought you knew/ You’ve won a hundred million tonnes/ But now, it seems You lose! (Hayes, 109)

The ›hundred million tonnes‹ can be a direct reference to the amount of garbage that is generated by humans and dumped into the ocean continually. In the panels in Fig. 7, one can observe how the waste has piled high like a mountain, deterring the passage of the ship (Fig. 7). Hayes calls it a »scattered funeral pyre«, but of synthetic forms, rather than carbonbased organisms. Nayar aptly remarks:

Just as the ancient tongue is indestructible, so is this plastic detritus. […] That is, the return of the repressed will not be a ghost as we know, but a ghost made of plastic and chemicals. […] Hayes anticipates a future uncanny wherein the antiquarian rising from the ocean floor will not be ghosts as we understand it, but plastic pollutants. (Nayar, 28)

The Medusa-like apparition and the hellscape experienced by the sailor might have been unreal but delivers him the ultimate reality check. After going through a harrowing experience, the mariner’s consciousness craves a pre-lapsarian Edenic retraction, surrounded by ›Gaia’s graceful harmonies‹, that »sang of Adam’s kin« (Fig. 8). Echoing Nanson’s stance, Nayar speaks about the uncertain nature of the ›mythic‹ ecological uncanny, especially in reference to the fever dreams the mariner has about ancient sea beasts:

The uncanny is about uncertainty attendant upon any form of knowing. Here the Mariner, having thus far come equipped with his modern, rational views, discovers that the sea has its own mythic anthropology, which may be the only explanation for the events unfolding. That is, existing, modern explanations no longer suffice to explain the stalling of the ship, deaths and suffering at sea. The uncanny is the space of this uncertainty; it emerges in the moment of hesitation that results from the confused narratives that generate both familiarity and strangeness… (Nayar, 33)

Eco-Mythology

A mythical premise to communicate ecological concerns has also been conceived by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas in his unique artistic tradition, which he identifies as ›Haida manga‹. In his texts such as Red, Flight of the Hummingbird, and Carpe Fin, he expresses concerns about the destruction of the natural milieu through the lens of folktales. Carpe Fin involves itself with the fisher community of Haida Gwaii, who are suffering from the lack of sustenance because of an oil spill incident. Carpe is a male member of the community, whose name is an obvious play on the word ›carp‹, or fish. He also happens to be a carpenter by vocation. The ›Fin‹ in the title is also a reference to a piscine appendage. After the fuel spill, the beaches have been deserted by traditional food sources which the community harvested. Moreover, the ferry which delivers sustenance to the island also fails to appear. Carpe and his friends go on an offshore expedition to hunt sea lions, in an area which is known as ›Lord’s Rock‹. Therein, an ancient Haida God of winds diverts the vessel, which leaves Carpe stranded on a rocky isle protruding out of the ocean.

In terms of the visuality of Haida manga, Yahgulanaas emphasizes an open ended, fluid, vibrant form of artistic expression. The panel division is not strict, and the sequence flows in a lucid fashion (Fig. 9). In the image, once encounters the mighty nature God, armed with his marine minions, proceeding towards the beach. The human habitation and their desperate cries »Run!« have been subsumed by the corporeal body of the deity and the waves he rides. Furthermore, the resurgence of the blue is striking, as the deity’s physicality seems one with the ocean. The manga visuality is adhered to, especially in creating myriad expressive faces of the characters, along with the visual flexibility which is persistent in a genre such as shōjo⁴ manga. The color palate is striking, with softer, hand-painted, water-colorish edges.

After Carpe is abducted by the Godhead and his followers, he realizes that the deity is none other than his grandfather, long deceased. The deity simultaneously blesses and curses Carpe. Satisfied with his reason for killing the sea lion, the grandfather’s spirit gives him an enchanted robe of invisibility. Yet, when Carpe refuses to be a permanent part of the divine collective, he is stranded in the village, but invisible to mortal eyes. Touched by divinity, he cannot integrate with his fellow humans any longer, albeit the divine itself was once human. He is trapped in a liminal existence, drifting between natural and supernatural. He is, at once, the site of synchrony and diachrony. Nanson mentions in reference to such interfaces of the mundane and the extramundane in animist cultures, that it is:

not just an »imagined world« but also an experiential world where people and various human and nonhuman others engage in communicative exchanges that involve the whole expressive body. The enchantment exercised by the power of voice and bodily presence discloses a supersensory »experience within a living landscape that is rich with the presence of mythological beings and transformations.« (Nanson, 185)

The pluralities of existence and experience can be witnessed in another panel, wherein the deity’s face is seamlessly juxtaposed with a disembodied human foot (Fig. 10). Several other dismembered faces also appear in the gestic space. In Haida cosmology, it seems difficult to discern between the mortal and the immortal, as the Gods are believed to be spirits that surround the isle community. As Carpe returns to the shores with a visionary capacity, he also finds himself endowed with a renewed sense of responsibility towards his community, as well as ecology. He finds the villagers to be hopeless and idle, as they have forgotten their old ways of survival. After deliberating about short term measures such as aquaculture and fishing fleets, he realizes that those would not be sustainable choices. Rather, with his magical endowments, he helps reeducate the locals about the ancient vocation of deep-sea fishing and fending for themselves. The fish are foregrounded in their marine habitat, waiting to be harvested for food (Fig. 11). After doing his duty, Carpe returns to join the deific fraternity while the deity rushes to meet the shores.

Conclusion

As argued in the article, the proposed concept of the ›aqua graphic‹ is manifest in myriad ways in the selected texts, according to their contextual specificity. However, certain commonalities are present, such as (i) an aquatic crisis, (ii) a fluid visual format with a water like quality, and finally, (iii) a life affirming awareness, which are augmented by the presence of magic/mythos/divine. The mermaid’s egg being hatched and returned to the mother by Yosuke perpetuates the mutual connection between the two communities. Malgu sings of the river and Goddess atop a cliff, replete with ancient wisdom, refuting the claims of the urban politician who dares slander him as ignorant. Ruka continues to live a ›normal‹ life in the seaside town, imbibing the cosmic memories of Umi and Sora. The reformed mariner finds audiences for his mysterious, paranormal, and cautionary tale. Carpe considers pragmatic human interventions for survival, yet ultimately submits to animistic forces for final survival. Foregrounding the aquatic imperative that is synchronous with the textual scope of the article, Dobrin conclusively offers, perhaps in favor of the essence of ›aqua graphic‹:

If blue passes from the eye into our very being, then, we must acknowledge, as well, that blue is composed by the very beings that inhabit ocean and reflects characteristics of those organisms in their oceanic ecologies. Being and blue, we must understand, encompass more than the human… (Dobrin, 73)

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Bibliography

• Dobrin, Sidney I.: Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative. New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Drengson, A. and Y. Inoue (eds.): The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology. Berkeley: North Atlantic Publishers, 1995.
• Guattari, Félix: »Remaking Social Practices«. The Guattari Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1996, pp. 262-273.
• Hayes, Nick: Rime of the Modern Mariner. London: Penguin, 2012.
• Hayes, Nick: New Books: The Rime of the Modern Mariner. In: Orion. <https://orionmagazine.org/2013/02/new-books-the-rime-of-the-modern-mariner/>. 15 Feb. 2013. Accessed 23 June. 2023.
• Igarashi, Daisuke: Children of the Sea, Vol. 1. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2009.
• Igarashi, Daisuke: Children of the Sea, Vol. 2. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2009.
• Igarashi, Daisuke: Children of the Sea, Vol. 5. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2013.
• Kon, Satoshi: Tropic of the Sea. New York: Vertical Comics, 2013.
• Nanson, Anthony: Storytelling and Ecology: Empathy, Enchantment and Emergence in the Use of Oral Narratives. London: Bloomsbury, 2021.
• Nayar, Pramod K.: The Climate of Change: Graphic Adaptation, The Rime of the Modern Mariner, and the Ecological Uncanny. In: Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication. Eds. Scott Slovic et al. New York: Routledge, 2019.
• Patterson Edward, J.K., et al.: COVID-19 Lockdown Improved the Health of Coastal Environment and Enhanced the Population of Reef-Fish. In Marine Pollution Bulletin 165 (2021), pp. 1-12.
• Sabhaney, Vidjun: ›My story springs from nature‹: Orijit Sen on creating first Indian graphic novel ›River of Stories‹. In: Scroll. 28 Jan 2023, <https://scroll.in/article/1042587/my-storysprings-from-nature-orijit-sen-on-creating-first-indian-graphic-novel-river-of-stories.> Accessed 22 Jun. 2023.
• Sen, Orijit: River of Stories. 2nd ed. Chennai: Blaft Publications, 2022.
• Slovic, Scott et al (eds.): Routledge Handbook of Ecocriticism and Environmental Communication. New York: Routledge, 2019.
• Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll: Carpe Fin. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019.
• Yuki, Masami et al (eds.): Ecocriticism in Japan. London: Lexington, 2018.

Filmography

• CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Japan 2019, D: Ayumu Watanabe)

Table of Figures

• Fig. 1: Yosuke swimming towards Mermaid Island. Kon, Satoshi. Tropic of the Sea. New York: Vertical Comics, 2013, p. 208.
• Fig. 2: Keeper of the Balance. Kon, Satoshi. Tropic of the Sea. New York: Vertical Comics, 2013, Cover.
• Fig. 3: Rewa Ecosystem. Sen, Orijit: River of Stories. 2nd ed. Chennai: Blaft Publications, 2022, pp. 48-49.
• Fig. 4: Kujum as the Universe. Sen, Orijit: River of Stories. 2nd ed. Chennai: Blaft Publications, 2022, p. 10.
• Fig. 5: Ruka’s Blue Eyes. CHILDREN OF THE SEA (Japan 2019, D: Ayumu Watanabe).
• Fig. 6: BioLuminescence. Igarashi, Daisuke: Children of the Sea, Vol. 1. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2009, p. 15.
• Fig. 7: Oceanic Debris. Hayes, Nick: Rime of the Modern Mariner. London: Penguin, 2012, p. 75.
• Fig. 8: Sirens. Hayes, Nick: Rime of the Modern Mariner. London: Penguin, 2012, p. 333.
• Fig. 9: The Ocean God. Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll: Carpe Fin. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019, p. 109.
• Fig. 10: Dismembered Entities. Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll: Carpe Fin. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019, p. 66.Abb. 1: Ennis; Robertson 2007, 81.
• Fig. 11: The Return. Yahgulanaas, Michael Nicoll: Carpe Fin. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2019, p. 105.

 

• 1]   As presented in this article, marine pollution lessened during the lockdown period, wich led to the increased population of reef fish in the Indian coastline (Patterson Edward, J.K., et al.). 
• 2]   ›Japonisme‹ did after all influence European artistic traditions of the 19th century such as Impressionism and Expressionism. For more information, one can refer to the history of the art of Ukiyo-e, and its proponents like Katsushika Hokusai.
• 3]   A sample of this can be viewed in a blog post for Orion Magazine, in which Nick Hayes discusses his comic book. Hayes, Nick: New Books: The Rime of the Modern Mariner. In: Orion. <https://orionmagazine.org/2013/02/new-books-the-rime-of-the-modern-mariner/>. 15 Feb. 2013. Accessed 23 June. 2023. 
• 4]   Manga texts targeting a young female audience, delving into the inner psychological landscape of characters. Elaborate background details and expressive faces are significant features of shōjo manga.