Warning: Death, violence and spoilers!
An old man gets accustomed to the modern age, only it’s more like old magic getting accustomed to a new host body. Sanda, being a descendant of Santa Claus, is getting accustomed to Santa’s powers while still trying to maintain his normal life of being a teenager, by almost getting killed by his first school crush, Fuyumura.
The year is 2080. Japan is experiencing a decline, both economically and in terms of population. The age gap in the population has been widening for decades, with the average age being between their late twenties and early fifties. However, the lowest age is for those in a pre-adolescent age range. As of now, approximately 50,000 children between the ages of 10 and 15 years old exist in Japan. And with the decline of children came the decrease in the belief in Santa Claus or the need for a Christmas until now.
Attacked Under the Mistletoe
Shiori Fuyumura is a high school student and class rep at the Daikoku Welfare Academy who is in search of her missing classmate, Ono, who hasn’t been seen in over ‘six months.’ She plays into the lore of the legendary curse of Santa Claus; first by finding a descendant of Santa and having them perform tasks that break the curse: show unconditional love to a child, give something that the child demands and have them wear something red. Kazushige Sanda is Fuyumura’s other classmate and rep, but was unaware of his unassuming descendency of Santa Claus, only for a few latent signs: he’s naturally cold resistant, throbbing heartbeats for his infatuation with Fuyumura contradicting Santa’s inability to a child in an intimate way (stay with me, it’s NOT like that!), and his subconscious refusal to wear his tracksuit which is red.
Fuyumura noticed these signs and immediately recalled the legend of Santa Claus, so she did what anyone would’ve done for the sake of rescuing a friend… stabbed Sanda to death in order to summon the powers of Santa. Oddly enough, it worked. Not really summoning Santa Claus himself, but rather his ancient yet chiseled physique while retaining Sanda’s mind. With Sanda’s newfound powers, he swears to Fuyumura that together they will find Ono and perhaps bring back Christmas to its forgotten glory.
Breaking Down the Bells and Whistles
Santa’s abilities so far include transforming from Sanda to Santa Claus by wearing something red, while eating a child’s candy, Bratty Beans will revert him. Good to know he’s both heat and fire-resistant, but did Fuyu really need to blow up the schools’ science lab with a bomb to do it? Retractable sleigh runners that come out of his feet at will. When a child lies, nearby objects will fall down, and lastly, his inability to love a child affectionately or even hit them; hitting a full-grown adult, though, is perfectly acceptable. Hopefully, Sanda’s cold resistance, which sort of contradicts Santa’s heat resistance, will play a factor in later volumes.
There’s Always a Grinch
Another one of Fuyu and Sanda’s classmates is Hitoshi Amaya. Mostly well-known for being the school’s ‘pretty boy’, but not so famous for his hidden sadistic tendencies. Being a child of Japan in 2080 basically means being born with diplomatic immunity; children can literally get away with murder. Having been the only witness to Sanda’s transformation in the science lab, which was later destroyed by Fuyu’s bomb, he took it upon himself to have a little fun with them. He kidnaps both Fuyu and Sanda, takes them to the lab, and toys with them, knowing they can’t turn him in without revealing Santa’s identity.
Sanda woke up in his Santa form because Amaya had already dressed him in his red tracksuit while he was out cold. Santa, having realized not all children are adorable and thus not worth his generosity, breaks free of his bonds by deploying his newfound weapons, the sleigh runners. Now, Santa can’t hurt children because it goes against his code, so he’s stuck on what to do with Amaya until a timely chance distraction arrives.
A Few Scrooges Loose
Hifumi Oshibu is the principal of Daikoku Academy. The creepiest thing about him isn’t just the fact that he’s a 92-year-old man with so many face lifts to the point he can no longer make any kind of facial expressions, but he’s in charge of enforcing the “Trauma-Free Curriculum.” Since children are ‘the future of Japan’ and if they were to experience something that may have traumatized them, statistically, they’d be ‘unfit’ to rebuild the population, so they must be immediately re-educated. Oshibu doesn’t capture Amaya in the act of holding Sanda and Fuyu hostage (they ducked behind a desk just in time), but does find him in the recent science lab wreckage.
He confronts Amaya, finds him rather ‘traumatized’ for some reason, and deems it necessary to take Amaya down to the ’basement’. Having no other choice, Santa reveals himself to Oshibu and destroys the floor underneath him using the sleigh runners and escapes with both Fuyu and Amaya. Now with Santa summoned, Oshibu makes an ominous phone call to a dark figure not yet revealed except for their name and title: Commander Fuyumura, head of the St. Nick Pursuit Unit.
A Real Stocking Stuffer
It’s only been the first volume, and this writer cannot tell you enough just how much they enjoyed reading Sanda. The careful explanation of the main character’s powers and limitations, the detail of the world’s environment and how it’s been set up and the story and the detective work going into the plot. We especially love this particular Gothic art style; it’s very reminiscent of Tim Burton’s work (James and the Giant Peach, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride). Everything has been solid so far.
My only takeaways are the possible translation errors that might’ve occurred as the original artwork for the Japanese manga was being adapted for American consumption, a note that even the publishers felt necessary to address on the introduction page. On page 15, the first mention of Ono’s length of time of disappearance had been ’a week’; on page 35, the second mention she had been missing for ‘six months’. But then on page 191, her disappearance had been mentioned again, this time to be ‘a month and a week’. Perhaps it was several days that bled into one more week; the translation might’ve been more accurately ‘6 weeks’ instead of ‘6 months’. One can only say that mistaking ‘kagetsu’ (months) with ‘shuukan’ (weeks) is a bit of a stretch, but it can happen.
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