Earl Cain

Earl Cain (伯爵カインシリーズ), also known as Count Cain, is a gothic manga series written and illustrated by Kaori Yuki. Earl Cain consists of five parts or "Series": Forgotten Juliet (忘れられたジュリエット), The Sound of a Boy Hatching (少年の孵化する音), Kafka (カフカ), The Seal of the Red Ram (赤い羊の刻印), and the sequel series Godchild (ゴッド チャイルド).

Appearing as serials in the Japanese magazine Hana to Yume, the chapters of Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram ran from 1992 to 1994, and the Godchild chapters appeared between 2001 and 2004. Together, the series spans 13 tankōbon volumes, with five for Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram and eight for Godchild. Two drama CDs based on the series were also released. Set in 19th century England, the series focuses on a young earl named Cain Hargreaves who solves murders while encountering his father's secret organization, Delilah, that experiments with reviving the dead.

Earl Cain is licensed for English-language release in North America by Viz Media, which published Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram as The Cain Saga. The first volume of The Cain Saga was published in October 2006; the final volume was published in June 2007. Godchild was released simultaneously, as well as being serialized in Viz's manga anthology Shojo Beat from July 2005 to June 2006.

Yuki began the manga inspired by "the darker, grislier side" of the Victorian upper class and her admiration of films set in the Victorian time period. For Godchild, she traveled to London to do historical research and visited several historical sites, including the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey. In the series, she refers to the Bible as well as real-life literary works, films and people. Earl Cain features several themes such as "the darker side of love" and a tainted childhood. Critical reaction to The Cain Saga was mixed: some felt that the mysteries were well-done with detailed art while others found the art crude and the short stories confusing and predictable. Reviewers praised Godchild as an overdone, entertaining series with detailed and distinct art.

Plot
Set in Victorian England, the series focuses on Cain Hargreaves, the son of Alexis Hargreaves and Alexis's elder sister, Augusta. Cain is abused throughout his childhood: Alexis whips him daily and orders the servants to ignore him. Despite this, Cain befriends a new servant named Riff, after Riff speaks to him. Cain acknowledges that his father despises him and has been slowly poisoning him with arsenic. When he secretly visits his mother at a mental institution, she mistakes him for Alexis and jumps out the window. Dying, she warns him to escape from Alexis. He returns home and poisons his father. Before Alexis plunges into the sea, he curses his son to have a miserable life and die alone. Cain inherits his father's title of earl as a result of Alexis's presumed death. Years later Cain, now seventeen, solves murders with Riff's help and collects poisons. During one mystery, he adopts young Mary Weather, who he believes is his half-sister. He also encounters his half-brother Jizabel Disraeli, a member of a secret organization that focuses on resurrecting the dead. From him, Cain learns that Alexis had survived his suicide and became the leader of that organization, renaming it Delilah. After the death of the woman that Cain loves, a Delilah "doll" or resurrected corpse surviving on the fresh blood and organs of others, he vows to end Delilah's experiments with the dead.

Sequel
Accompanied by Riff, Cain continues to solve murders while periodically running into Jizabel and other members of Delilah. After encountering Delilah's doll of his deceased half-sister Suzette, Cain becomes obsessed with destroying the organization and learns that it is secretly building a memorial temple. Meanwhile, despite Jizabel's efforts to delay Riff's second, hidden, and cruel personality from awakening, the hypnosis suppressing it breaks. Riff later declares to Cain that he secretly works for Delilah: the loyal Riff Cain had known is a false personality implanted by the organization. Alexis had intended for Cain to develop a close bond with Riff, only to break it, to remind Cain that he is unloved. After Riff's departure, Cain resolves to confront Alexis and promises Mary that they will have a tea party after the conflict with Delilah ends. Led by a former member of Delilah, he reaches the tower within the temple where Alexis plans to sacrifice the brainwashed people of London to revive Augusta. Within the tower, Riff reveals his intent to overthrow Alexis. Unconcerned, Alexis divulges that Riff is Delilah's longest surviving doll and will soon die. Riff attacks Cain, but Riff's other personality resurfaces, causing him to deliberately shoot himself. Riff's loyal personality triumphs over the cruel one, but he and Cain are separated. Because Riff's wound cannot heal, Jizabel commits suicide so Riff can use his blood to briefly remain alive and return to Cain. Meanwhile, Cain successfully poisons his father and with his death, the tower begins to crumble. Cain, unable to escape and hurt by the falling debris, reunites briefly with Riff. However, the ceiling collapses and Riff tries to push him away. Cain embraces him, choosing to stay.

After Cain's disappearance, Mary becomes head of the Hargreaves. Augusta possesses Alexis, and seeks out Mary in the mausoleum Cain had built before leaving to confront Alexis. Augusta reveals that she manipulated Alexis into abusing his sons and trying to resurrect her for her amusement. Before she can kill Mary, Augusta triggers Cain's trap in the mausoleum and dies. Years later, a medium close to Cain sets up a tea party for Mary, fulfilling Cain's promise; he then reminisces on how he found Cain being held by Riff's corpse within the ruined tower.

Characters
This series stands out in the shojo demographic, which is aimed at teenage girls, since few female characters appear in it.
 * Cain C. Hargreaves (カイン・C・ハーグリーヴス)
 * The antihero of the series. He has golden green eyes as a result of being a child born of incest. Alexis physically and mentally abused him and killed his pets to cause him misery. His stepmother tried to kill him when she believed that he was getting in the way of the love Alexis never had for her, only to be poisoned by Alexis. The only people he trusts are his valet Riff and sister Mary. Riff is the first person Cain trusted and the only one he allows to see and touch his scars from Alexis's nightly abuse. He fears becoming like his father, because he fell in love with his half-sister, Suzette. Kaori Yuki felt that Cain looked older than his intended age of seventeen in The Cain Saga. In the drama CD adaption, he is voiced by Hideo Ishikawa.


 * Riffael "Riff" Raffit (リフェール・ラフィット)
 * Cain's valet. Riff dresses Cain and ties his shoes for him, which Yuki considers "a form of communication between the two of them because they've been together so long that they're almost like father and child." Secretly a high-ranking member of Delilah, he is placed with Cain so that Cain form a close bond with him and be further hurt when Riff reveals that he had always despised him. Riff had murdered his own family and died in the ensuing fire he intentionally set. Resurrected by Delilah and given an alternate, kinder personality, he is the longest surviving of all the dolls, occasionally brought to the organization's hideout and given blood transfusions to keep him alive. However, his will to rebel against Delilah grew stronger as the hypnosis faded, which allows him to kill his original, cruel personality.


 * Mary Weather Hargreaves (マリーウェザー･ハーグリーヴス)
 * Cain's ten-year-old half sister. After her mother commits suicide to protect her from her obsessive suitor, Mary lives on the streets of London as a fortuneteller. Cain believes that she is his half-sister, and adopts her. Outgoing and strong-willed, she is often annoyed by Cain's relationships with women. She does not like how Cain shelters her, but accepts it because she believes that it eases his suffering. One of Cain's friends, Oscar Gabriel, becomes her self-proclaimed fiancé to win back his father's attention. As the series progresses, he risks his life to protect her and she realizes that he genuinely cares for her. In the epilogue, she is married to him and pregnant with his child. Although she is actually not related to Cain, he loves her regardless.


 * Jizabel Disraeli (ジザベル・ディズレーリ)
 * Alexis' illegitimate son and Cain's half-brother. Jizabel is a sadistic doctor who works for Alexis's secret organization Delilah. As a child, he cared for the lives of animals, but was tricked into eating his pet sheep by Alexis. Alexis also murdered his older sisters so their healthy organs could be transplanted into Jizabel's sickly body. Upon learning of this, Jizabel felt that he was unworthy of love and became depressed. Like Cain, his back is scarred from Alexis's whippings; he sees the scars as "symbols of [his] father's love". He despises the close bond Cain has with Riff because he believes that unconditional love does not exist. He was Yuki's favorite character to draw in the beginning.


 * Alexis Hargreaves (アレクシス・ハーグリーヴス)
 * Cain and Jizabel's father. Abusive, and a skillful manipulator Alexis blames Cain for Augusta's insanity and death, and resolves to make life impossible for him. As the leader of Delilah, he assigns members within the secret organization their ranks. The only person he ever loved was his sister, Augusta, despite his arranged marriage to a woman he later murders. While Cain believes that Alexis raped Augusta, she actually seduced him. After Augusta's death, he stole her head from her coffin before she is cremated on their father's orders. Using cells extracted from her head, Alexis makes several clones of her; all except for one perish. The remaining clone is soulless and he hopes to coax her spirit into it, using a magic ritual. The research Alexis puts into creating a new body for his sister leads to the creation of the dolls. Alexis simultaneously despised and wanted happiness for his sons.


 * Suzette (シュゼット)
 * Augusta's daughter and Cain's half-sister and first love. She planned to elope with her lover by faking her death, but he leaves her buried alive. Escaping from her premature grave, she then poisons him and herself. Later in the series, members of Delilah dig up her grave for her ring and ring finger to create Mikaila (ミケイラ), a younger doll version with the ability to summon and control poisonous spiders that are modeled after the Painted Red Leg Tarantulas. Alexis repeatedly tells Mikaila that she is "an angel" destined to bear Cain's child, which causes her to become obsessed with Cain. She later undergoes an aging operation to resemble Suzette more and win Cain's love, but it damages her fragile body.  Cain later brings her to one of his hideouts to gain information about Delilah, and she clashes with Mary, believing that she is in competition with her for his affection. Although she is given the option of killing her to rejoin Delilah and continue to live, Mikaila chooses to die while pondering the meaning of her artificially created life.


 * Neil Hargreaves (ニール・ハーグリーヴス)
 * Cain's uncle and legal guardian. He tends to become upset with Cain's behavior and course of action. He and Cain are often at odds because Cain believes that Neil's strictness derives from caring more about his inheritance than him, when in fact Neil chose to take care of him because he felt that he seemed lonely even as an infant and was touched when he reached for his hand.

Themes
In Earl Cain, Kaori Yuki explored incest and child abuse as "strong motivators". Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide, wrote that Godchild, like Yuki's gothic fantasy manga Angel Sanctuary, portrays "incest in a more classical tormented sense" which results in "guilt, madness, and the punishment of heaven". The series also focuses on the characters' "tragic destinies" and the suffering which drives them to commit crimes. In her works, Yuki frequently uses the "power of love" as a theme; Godchild focuses on "the darker side of love, and the extremes one will go to when they believe they are in it". However, it also explores the positive side of love, shown when Cain rejects his father's belief that he is unloved and gains the strength to outwit him. Another theme that occurs in Godchild is betrayal: Riff betrays Cain and by causing the death of a Delilah member, Cain demonstrates that anyone can betray another. Additionally, the theme of "the soiled childhood" occurs throughout the series, depicted by abused children or children's items such as dolls, pudding, and puppets playing a role in some mysteries. They appear either in the background as in "The Little Crooked House", a mystery featuring a lonely crippled girl who has her maid transform people into living dolls, or as a major part of the plot as in "Solomon Grundy's Sunday", in which a woman is murdered by her changed lover over a sapphire ring hidden in the eye of her doll.

Development
Kaori Yuki chose the Victorian Age as the setting for Earl Cain because she liked films from that time period and was inspired by "the darker, grislier side" of the Victorian upper class. Yuki has stated that while there is no model for Cain, British actor Rupert Graves "left a strong impression" on her with his films. After completing the first four parts of Earl Cain—Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram, Yuki was uncertain about continuing the series. She wrote Angel Sanctuary and the chapter "Solomon Grundy's Sunday" as a "self-introduction" which convinced her to start Godchild. Yuki did historical research for Godchild, traveling to London and visiting Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, the British Museum, Thames River, and Hyde Park. Because of the gap of several years between the publication of the final The Seal of the Red Ram volume and the first Godchild volume, Yuki included the characters in order of previous appearance with past episodes, and short explanations in the first Godchild volume. Yuki noted that her drawing style differed from her previous series. The darker plot of Godchild worried Yuki, but helped her to decide the series' ending. Her method of creating suspense in Godchild included adding "lots" of black screen tone, "exaggerating" the characters' expressions, having an elaborate setting, and opening the chapter with an everyday scene to contrast with the "scary scenes".

Yuki believed that the original story was unclear and added extra pages to clarify the twist ending of the series. Because of her decision, the ending chapter of Godchild was eight pages longer than the usual thirty pages for a manga. Yuki was divided between a happy or tragic ending for Cain, noting how readers of Angel Sanctuary had wanted a happy ending for the protagonists. She felt that the ending of Godchild was ambiguous as to whether Cain survived because there is no blood or a fatal wound on him. Yuki chose the final line of Godchild from the rhyme "Simple Simon", joking in the postscript that at least the series did not conclude with "and then there were none". As of finishing the series, Yuki said that she has no plans for additional chapters or side stories.

Influences and cultural references
Earl Cain contains references to real-life people and literary works. The first Godchild chapter, "Mad Tea Party", focuses on a mystery with elements from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Yuki's minor character, Victoria, was inspired by Carroll's character, The Queen of Hearts. Cain's last name, Hargreaves, alludes to Alice Liddell's married name. Carroll's poem, The Hunting of the Snark, provided Yuki with the name of Jizabel's childhood pet, Snark. Additionally, the title of the third part of the series, Kafka, refers to the writer Franz Kafka, and the first line of his novella The Metamorphosis appears in the beginning of the volume. Yuki also based the story of Mikaila on the fairytale "Mermaid Princess". The chapter "Oedipal Blade" takes its name from the Greek character Oedipus Rex, who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. References to the Bible also appear in the series. The protagonist shares his name with the murderer Cain, and Augusta is compared to Delilah by her father. Additionally, the series mentions the story of the Kiss of Judas, in which Judas betrays Christ to Roman soldiers by identifying him through a kiss.

The influence of films is also seen in Earl Cain. Yuki is a fan of the television series Twin Peaks and reviewers have noted its influence on Forgotten Juliet, the first part of Earl Cain. Yuki felt that two minor characters that appear in Forgotten Juliet, Maddi and Leland in the chapter "Branded Bibi", are reminiscent of the series. Yuki also drew inspiration from the film Young Sherlock Holmes for "The Boys Who Stopped Time", and based the appearance of Cain's aunt on Charlotte from A Room with a View. In the chapter "Double", one of the characters shares his first name with the actor Emilio Estevez. Additionally, Riff's name comes from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which Yuki considers a visual influence along with Gothic, Legend of Billy Jean, Aliens, Lost Boys, and Torch-song Trilogy. Overall as a mangaka, Yuki has been influenced by Western films and MTV, which she watched in her youth.

Manga
Written and illustrated by Kaori Yuki, Earl Cain is the collective name for Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, The Seal of the Red Ram, and the sequel series Godchild. Appearing as a serial in the Japanese manga magazine Hana to Yume, the chapters of Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram ran from 1992 to 1994, and were published in five tankōbon volumes by Hakusensha from July 17, 1992, to October 1994. From 2001 to 2004, Godchild was serialized in the same manga magazine, and was published by Hakusensha in eight volumes from November 19, 2001, to January 16, 2004. Hakusensha later combined chapters from Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram into two volumes and published them from December 20, 2004, to January 28, 2005. Hakusensha also re-released the series in six bunkoban volumes from July 15, 2009, to March 16, 2010.

Viz Media licensed Earl Cain for an English-language release in North America. It serialized Godchild in its manga anthology Shojo Beat from the July 2005 issue through the June 2006 issue. It published the series' first volume on March 7, 2006; the final volume was released on February 5, 2008. Viz published Forgotten Juliet, The Sound of a Boy Hatching, Kafka, and The Seal of the Red Ram as The Cain Saga and released the first volume during the Godchild release, on October 3, 2006; the final volume was released on June 5, 2007. Earl Cain is also licensed for regional language releases in Germany and Sweden by Carlsen Comics, in Italy by Planet Manga, in Taiwan by Tong Li Publishing, in Spain by Glénat, and in France by Editions Tonkam. Godchild ran in multiple manga anthologies: the French Magnolia, the German Daisuki, and the Swedish Shojo Stars.



Drama CDs
On April 21, 1999, Geneon Entertainment released a drama CD titled Hakushaku Kain Shiriizu: Kafuka (伯爵カインシリーズ~カフカ). It featured Hideo Ishikawa, Kyoko Hikami, Takehito Koyasu, and music by Tomohiko Kira. The same company released a second drama CD, HCD Hakushaku Kain Shiriizu: Kirikizamareta Taberareta Miss Pudding no higeki (HCD伯爵カインシリーズ「切り刻まれ食べられたミス·プディングの悲劇), on November 17, 1999. The drama CD featured Hideo Ishikawa, Kyoko Hikami, Takehito Koyasu, from Kafuka and included Taeko Kawada and Junko Asami.

Reception
The Cain Saga received mixed reviews from critics. Manga Sanctuary awarded the French edition of the first volume five stars, describing it as "excellent." IGN's A. E. Sparrow described it as "a wonderful introduction to shojo manga for the uninitiated" and felt that both The Cain Saga and its sequel Godchild could "appeal to a very broad audience." The Book Report's Courtney Kraft praised the "fine attention to detail and aesthetics" of the art and liked the concept of murder mysteries based on children's rhymes and stories, commenting that Yuki "masters the art of creating a mystery." Conversely, Mania Entertainment's Danielle Van Gorder considered the art "still much less refined than her later work in Angel Sanctuary," and commented on the amount of tragedy in the series. Manga News rated the first volume 15 out of 20, commenting that the male characters looked similar and had similar facial expressions in contrast to the more recognizable female ones. In Manga: The Complete Guide, Thompson, Jason rated the series two and a half stars out of four, stating: "In its best moments, The Cain Saga captures the genuine ghoulishness of the Victorian era, or at least of its stereotypes." The Cain Saga was also criticized for scenes with "poorly organized" artwork, one-dimensional characters, predictable mysteries, and confusing plot, caused by the back-story and characters.

Conversely, the sequel, Godchild, received positive reviews. When the first chapter premiered in Shojo Beat, critics commented on the potiental and art of the series, but found the chapter "listless" and confusing. Reviews of the bound volumes were positive. Leroy Douresseaux of Coolstreak Cartoons wrote: "By turns bizarre and unsettling, Godchild is actually quite engaging, but can be difficult to follow for those who didn’t come in at the beginning". Writing for Sequential Tart, Sheena McNeil described Godchild as "a masterpiece in every sense of the word." Critics praised the art of the series as detailed and distinct with several noting the difference in the illustrations of The Cain Saga and Godchild. B. D. Gest's M. Natali wrote that "one senses immediately how the art of Kaori Yuki has evolved and improved since [The Cain Saga]". About.com's Deb Aoki placed the series on her recommended reading list of horror manga, commenting on the "ravishing" artwork and "lush gothic details." While describing the series as "the manga equivalent of Twizzlers" and the premise as "ahistoric and just plain silly," Katherine Dacey of Popculture Shock added, "Kaori Yuki's distinctive artwork and macabre sensibility make this overripe setup entertaining, even if the occasionally slangy dialogue and CSI-style forensics seem implausible in a Victorian London setting." Although Yuki's character designs stuck to "certain shojo conventions", they were seen as detailed and "perfect" for the mood of Godchild. Reviewers enjoyed the conclusion to the series, although one wanted a clearer fate for Cain and another commented on the "rushed" ending scenes. Godchild was also criticized for the characters' cruelty, Jizabel's disturbing back-story, and limited appeal of the series' universe.