Memories of Emanon



Memories of Emanon is a one-shot manga based on a novel by Shinji Kajio. The story takes place in 1967 Japan, with the nameless 20-year old narrator returning home from his travels after his wallet gave out. On the ferry back home, he encounters a cool, mysterious girl in blue jeans with a cigarette in her mouth. Her pack has the initials E.N. on it, but she tells the narrator to call her Emanon. She invites him to dinner, and they begin to talk to kill the time.

After making an off comment about remembering an event that by no means Emanon should have experienced, she decides to tell the narrator, a sci-fi fanatic, her background, saying he can choose to believe it or not. It turns out that Emanon is the inheritor of Genetic Memory that gives her the knowledge and memories of everyone in her maternal line of ancestry, including the ones that weren't human, or even multi-cellular. The narrator and Emanon discuss the possibilities and potential reasoning behind these memories, and about life in general. After claiming it was just a story, Emanon vanishes the next morning leaving the narrator with just a note. Life goes on for the narrator, but he never forgets that night, and wonders how his life would have turned out differently if he hadn't parted ways with Emanon.

The manga has been fully translated, but you have to dig around a bit for it. There's a sequel called Sasurai Emanon, which hasn't been translated.

This series provides examples of:

 * Blessed With Suck: Emanon sees her immortality as this. She even repeatedly calls it a disease, since human minds are naturally meant to forget things.
 * Evolutionary Levels: Discussed, see Hollywood Evolution below.
 * Genetic Memory: Emanon's method of immortality. Unique in that it goes past human ancestors, and may begin with the first strand of DNA to float in the primordial soup.
 * Genre Savvy: The unnamed protagonist, who immediately comes up with several scifi-esque hypothesis as to why Emanon is the way she is. In the end, the reader never really does find out if he was correct.
 * Historical in Joke: Emanon in past lives was previously a legendary Buddhist nun who supposedly lived for 800 years, and was the source of many Japanese myths.
 * Hollywood Evolution: The narrator is a 60's sci-fi fan, so it's to be expected when he's trying to figure out reasoning behind Emanon's memory.
 * Hotter and Sexier: Sasurai Emanon. Emanon spends a good chunk of it in the nude, albeit non-sexually. Still, Barbie Doll Anatomy and Scenery Censor are completely and utterly averted.
 * Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane: One of the major themes of the story is if Emanon is actually immortal, or spinning yarns to pass a long night away..
 * Mohs Scale of Sci Fi Hardness: so soft that it could be considered fantasy. Ironic in that the narrator is a fan of some hard sci-fi like Robert Heinlein.
 * No Name Given: taken to an art form. The narrator is left unnamed, and Emanon intentionally goes under a nickname, saying that a name is just a label. Justified in that with how long she's been around, she probably has had hundreds if not thousands of names.
 * Time Abyss: Three billion years with no end in sight.
 * Time Dissonance: Invoked by the narrator. He realizes that since Emanon is three billion years old, that night probably barely registered as a blip to her in the grand scheme of things.
 * Sdrawkcab Name: Emanon backwards is "No Name."
 * Secret Identity Identity: She's inconsistent on whether her various incarnations are herself or just her ancestors.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever: Emanon considering her immortality to be a disease.
 * Who Wants to Live Forever: Emanon considering her immortality to be a disease.