Danica Davidson
May 15, 2024 
My Gemini is a manga that takes inspiration from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the classic novel, the narrator is Gabriel John Utterson. In the manga, John Utterson is the main character. He’s small and awkward, goes to a British boarding school, and feels proud he can tell the difference between his identical twin classmates, Jekyll and Hyde Stevenson. (Stevenson, get it?) The twins like to play games where they pretend to be the other one, and John is alone in being able to recognize which boy is which.
Jekyll and Hyde look like young blond bishonen, all pretty and sparkly. Then, Jekyll abruptly dies. John only has Hyde to hang around with now. But is it really Hyde? Or is it Jekyll pretending to be Hyde again? What sort of games have these boys been playing?
My Gemini has a cute and quirky concept about taking a classic story and putting it into a school setting. While the original book is dark and ominous, so far the manga isn’t scary at all. There are no murders, nothing like that. The closest we get to anything creepy involves rumors about a ghost, but that’s quickly and logically explained away. Even the artwork tends to be pretty or straightforward as opposed to anything you’d associate with a horror story.
In fact, it’s a little weird not seeing Hyde acting evil. Is he really so bad? How different is he from Jekyll? This leads to the question: is Hyde going to get worse later on, or is the manga going to steer that far away from the source material, and remain more cute and quirky than dark and ominous? At this point it feels pretty hard to predict. There are definitely a lot of ways the mangaka can go with this, so it might just be a matter of seeing where this delves next.
Story & Art: Yuu Morikawa
Publisher: Yen Press
Translator: Emma Schumacker
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
