I have, conservatively, written this essay no less than 30 times. Who knows how many re-writes the version you are now reading has gone through before I published it. I stopped counting a few days ago. Yet I am compelled to write this because the only cure for a haunting is an exorcism. This essay is my attempt at that. Hopefully this image can finally be expelled from my mind to live on in yours instead.
I do not mean this to be hyperbolic when I say that there is no single image that more powerfully represents a work than the above illustration from Helter Skelter. I’ve read thousands of volumes of manga at this point so I have a pretty strong sample size to compare it to and nothing comes close. It is a solemnly beautiful image on its own but when coupled with the context of Helter Skelter’s story; it becomes exponentially more profound. You can see the entirety of Liliko’s being here and it leaves you in ruins.
She is awash in the blinding white glare of the spotlight that is her fame. It makes her the center of attention but surrounds her in darkness. The traces of light in the shadow being the parts of herself she has to discard. As her proverbial star shines brighter, she is left isolated. The status of celebrity doesn’t just raise you above others but separates you from them. In this Liliko has become a symbol of perfection and beauty. Something more than human but also something less as, even from her new pedestal, she still has to look up.
It’s her eyes that I can never truly get out of my head. What is communicated in that simple gaze is staggering. In this seemingly blank, super-model stare, I can see the hope of a dream coming true along the with apprehension of what that means. After years of pain and sacrifice, Liliko has finally made it to this point. Now that she’s here, that raises a question: what else will she have to give up in order to stay? If you’ve made it to the top, the only place left to go is back down. Beneath the veneer of her other-worldly beauty, I see in her eyes a woman that has just realized that she might be getting more than she bargained for. It’s too bad that we will never know the answer.
Helter Skelter began serialization in 1995 and it remains unfinished. In May of 1996, Kyoko Okazaki was tragically hit by a drunk driver. She survived the incident but her injuries were so severe that she spent the next 20 years re-habilitating. Given how much things have changed since then, it is highly unlikely that we ever witness the end to Liliko’s story. Which leaves her in this moment, under the spotlight and gazing at some unknowable point in her future. Never aging, the center of her world, and at the pinnacle of her power and beauty. I think that might be what she would’ve wanted.