Review by Frank Plowright

When London’s mayor is found dead on an underground train suspicion falls on student Al Adley, present at the time, yet unable to remember anything out of the ordinary, never mind explain why he has a bloody knife in his coat pocket. He’s a solitary type who prefers his own company, well matched by the second prominent character, Inspector Ellis, a police detective who’s been injured on the job and isn’t recovering as well as might be expected.

On actually reading Lost Lad London it’s very noticeable that having considered the city of London important enough to include in the title, Shima Shinya makes almost no effort to embed his characters in the location. There’s nothing of the rich London found in Naoki Uruzawa’s Master Keaton stories, and the occasional smudgy panel featuring distinctive London livery does nothing to dispel the feeling that the story could be set in Frankfurt, Toronto or Tokyo. In the fashion of much manga, Shinya’s panels are largely free of backgrounds, so why advertise an exotic location then make so little use of it?

However, the following volumes emphatically answer the question of why London is the location, if not going any further in exploiting the visual possibilities. Far more effort is made ensuring the people, primarily Al and Ellis, have a cartoon reality about them and transmit as credible. There’s a world-weariness to Ellis coping with injuries, and an innocence to Al.

If much of what’s going on is inexplicable to Al, Ellis at least has some ideas. Shinya makes readers aware that he’s experienced a similar case, and also shows outside forces manipulating Al. Despite the visuals prioritising conversations between the pair, the plot actually moves fast as Al discovers much about his life after never previously showing any curiosity about being adopted. It’s also interesting for an overt acknowledgement of racism, with Al’s birth parents obviously not as Anglo-Saxon as his adopted ones.

The mysteries introduced are likely to grab any reader, and that will overcome any qualms about generic locations. On to Lost Lad London 2.