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Hotel Africa
Manga Review
Beautiful is the only word to describe Hotel Africa. Maybe I'll throw in the adjective, superbly, right before it but the extra word would require me to use more oxygen than what I have in my lungs after Hotel knocked the breath out of me.
The first few pages would ensnare you even before the story truly starts. The artwork that exists outside of the story will have you staring at it for hours. Your eyes will be treated to something that I can only liken to Korean manga meets Georgia O'Keeffe. There are even instances where the artist invokes Salvador Dali less his flamboyance, a dreamlike quality that draws you in. It's as if you are seeing your past, remembering some past where only good things ever existed. Nostalgia, where parents did no wrong, milk was always cold, bread was always warm and buttered, friends were always there, and you can eat ice cream without counting calories and worrying about cholesterol. Innocence, when dreams were a reality, love was abundant, given and received without reservations or prices to pay.
 When and if you get past the artwork, you will be greeted softly by the story. You might not notice it has started: it is colored just like the artwork that comes before it. The difference is that it has lost that dreamlike quality; it subtly brings you back to reality. This reality introduces you to the main character, Elvis, who you will be traveling with through his memories. His mother telling him about his father, a black Elvis impersonator, and their short time together. The isolation and segregation that his grandma and mother tried protected him from would touched him but understanding and forgiveness will always come shortly after. The innocent curiosity of the child in him and the impatience of an adult that wants out: neither tempering the other but rather enhancing both.
 Of all the people that he introduces us to: his stubborn protective Grandma, his loving Mother who ran back home to escape her pain, his roommate July who puts up a front so strong that no one knows that her inside is filled with broken glass, his insecure boyfriend Ed who doesn't know how to act when he is jealous of the closeness of Elvis and July but at the same time he truly does care for her, and the multitude of people that come and go from his family's bed and breakfast, Hotel Africa, none captures the full range of his emotions like Geo. Geo represented everything in this world to Elvis: the father figure that he never had who would always be around to protect him, the older brother that can teach him about the world, a man of the world that has weathered through everything and still has the best of his humanity intact, and most importantly, a person that is willing to treat him as an equal and not as a child.
I don't think anything I write can ever come close to describing the beauty of this manga. It is like rain. If you are in a rush, it is a pain and inconvenience but when you slow down and look at it, something else comes out of it. You notice the necessity of it: nurturing the Earth, allowing life to exist, and cleaning the dirt off your car. You notice the exquisiteness of it: the rhythmic pitter patter of it that just soothes your soul, the uniformity of the rain as it falls randomly from the sky. Slow down and experience Hotel Africa for yourself.
Reviewed by Carolyn Whu, October 2008
Below: Illustrations from Hotel Africa.
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