Archive for category MMF
Jiro Taniguchi MMF: The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories
I have noticed since I was a teenager, the disparity between man and nature. Man, overcomes nature through force of willpower. Nature, seemingly, has no comeback most of the time. But when it’s a man or men against nature, then the story is different. It’s in these situations that humanity, in its little oases of “civilization”, finds out how little it knows and also how pitiable its attempts to fight back are. After reading The Walking Man, I was delighted to discover more of Taniguchi’s work, this time taking place in the realm of nature rather than an urban environment. While the main title is its lead story, the book contains more tales to enthrall.
Jiro Taniguchi MMF: The Walking Man
Jiro Taniguchi is a wonder to behold. You could read one of his books, marvel at the artwork and not even have to read the dialogue. I’m not saying you will follow every window but you could get by without them. The man is a modern wonder. He hasn’t written a magnus opus (well, I think he has but I’m not everyone) but there’s a world in all of his books. I’ve written before about this effect in his books where you try and peer around buildings and people because you want to see more. I am happy to read and write about Taniguchi for as long as I can keep reading his stuff. With that, I commend to you, The Walking Man.
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Kingyo Used Books 1 – 4 Overview
Finding time to read a book these days is something that I didn’t give much thought to when I was younger. I mean, bookshops had been around forever? They weren’t going anywhere. Then the Internet arrived. Bookshops shrugged. It’s the Internet, where people posted images on Geocities and browsed Usenets. Then the iPad arrived. Bookshops shuddered and when the Kindle arrived, things have never been the same since. So in the English speaking world, the power the big book chain shops had acquired was demolished, literally, brick by brick. Today I can find, maybe, five or ten bookshops in my city. Of them, I would trust three of them for recommendations. But in Japan, it’s different. The book publishing industry seems to be, er, booming? OK, that’s a lie. Japanese publishers are also feeling the pinch from eBooks and online reading services. But the used book shops do well. People always want to read the books they read when they were young. Or find that classic book they had put off but now want to read. Or even, the books that people have never heard of and that wait in the patient hope someone will read them. There must be people to read those books and they must have stories of their own, right?
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MMF: Not Love But Delicious Foods
This Yoshinaga roll I’m on keeps getting better and better. While All My Darling Daughters was thoughtful and poised with great drama and heart to it, I want a change of pace, dammit! I want a no holds barred all out crazy ride! I want brainless action and gratuitous fan service! And Not Love.. is NOT that kind of title! If you want that, read this!
However, in Not Love…’s favour, if you want a great side story surrounding the act of food restaurant crawls then this is right up your alley. With “fictional” manga-ka F-mi Y-Naga, the author may or may not be presenting her real life to us. Much of Yoshinaga’s real life is in here, is anyone’s guess. But anyway, the point of the story is that Y-Naga when she’s not doing manga of some sort, goes with her friends and roommate, S-Hara to various restaurants and eateries to sample, enjoy and discuss the food on display.
I love the off kelter take the book has. When we are introduced to Y-Naga, it describes her as making a living “by drawing men engaging in anal sex” and then proceeds to make her both attractive and ugly while showing that really other than food she really doesn’t have it together. And the people around her are just as bad if not worse. Her roommate, S-Hara, is also one of her assistants and he’s just as scatterbrained as she is insofar as he not only tolerates her eccentricities but actually doesn’t care anymore. So their life revolves around work then food and Y-Naga eating like a slob. But the book doesn’t go out of its way to show you their lives all that much. Oh, no. The book does something far, far better.
It’s only goal in life is to sell you food. Mountains and mountains of it. Fumi Yoshinaga went around the eateries and restaurants in Tokyo and wrote down or took pictures of the food, drew the maps to show how to get there and also wrote the side notes of what to expect when you get there, what you should order and how much you’ll expect to pay. With this winning idea, Yoshinaga then begins to spin her web about the characters as they make their way through the menu in front of them and in life. The food on display really is delicious looking. From Korean barbecue, Italian starters, ice cream to New York Chocolate bread, it’s all mouth watering stuff. I want to eat everything they eat! Every meal is described in loving detail and Yoshinaga shows that she sampled every single thing because the way she draws the food and has the characters give their reactions couldn’t have been found in a book.
The characters themselves are as packed together as the food has ingredients. Y-Naga is probably, and I say probably with reserve, the author in real life. But she’s (Y-Naga) a little extreme to be the real girl. Also the way Yoshinaga depicts her is as crazy. Y-Naga goes from being frumpy to wanton to chic in 200 odd pages. She can’t do anything for herself that doesn’t revolve around food. She need help with her work, her life and her friends. She misses that one of her friends is gay. But still she cares for her friends and tries her best to understand them. And we love her for trying. Usually in the mornings, she’s drawn with a headband on, bedhead hair and Henry Kissinger glasses. S-Hara at times, just the same as Y-Naga, is depicted as being an attractive man and then being nondescript. The rest of the cast doesn’t get the same kind of on/off treatment so I can’t comment on the authors thoughts about the other characters.
I’m not going to lie to you. Not Love… is never going to be on many top ten lists in most manga fans books. But the fact that it’s published in English and that it exists is more than enough for me to like it. The fact that it’s quirky characters and amazing concept drew me in as well as it did, speaks to the strengths of the author. It’s a great introduction to Yoshinaga and I recommend it to people unfamiliar to her works.
Psst: (Shameless promotion) If you want to buy this from Amazon, click on the image of the book and I’ll get a cut ;-D
MMF: All My Darling Daughters
Fumi Yoshinaga is a name that I’d heard before. Mostly, about Antique Bakery. So when the MMF decided to focus on her, I knew that she did Yaoi and I wanted to avoid those titles if I could. Not that I have anything against Yaoi, just that I’m not really ready to review Yaoi. Hell, I have a pile of LuvLuv titles from Aurora Publishing sitting in my storage lockup that I’ve read but not reviewed because I feel I’m not ready to review them. But two titles popped up in the discussion boards: Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! and All My Darling Daughters.
Visiting the dealers room at Otakon, I found myself looking for these titles as I would have to special order them back home. Picking them up, I decided to read them on the plane journey home. Was I glad to have read and now review them? Between the two of them, Not Love… is more easy going and out and out funny. But AMDD, to shorten the title, was a different rhythm and therefore had a different impact on me.
Yukiko, a thirty something woman, lives with her mother Mari. One day she comes home to find her mother has started dating and moved in a young man, Ken, who she met at a host club. Of course, Yukiko thinks that Ken is trying to con Mari out money or God knows what else. However a revelation Yukiko discovers about herself forces her to move out into the big world for the first time. From what I saw of Ken, he seems like a nice guy who can see through Yukiko’s anger and knows that there’s more going on than her just being angry at he and Mari. And so she moves out to stay with friends. Now any other kind of manga would have the story be about Mari and Ken’s relationship developing and Yukiko coming to terms with it. But Yoshinaga doesn’t dwell on it, instead focusing on Yukiko and the people she lives with and hangs out with and their lives. From Mr. Izumi, whose student wants to give, um, “gratification” but not be in a relationship with him to Wakabayashi who tries to find a husband despite not having it in her to be discriminatory.
The stories are varied and Yoshinaga does a good job making me care about people I have literally just met. There’s something about how the casts good and bad points are laid bare and there’s nowhere to go. In Izumi’s case, his relationship with his student starts off sleazy (I don’t know how to say that she started it without it seeming like she’s at fault) and he’s not comfortable with it at all but by the end of their relationship he feels that the girl is on a better path without him. I love the story of Saeki, one of Yukiko’s childhood friends. To put a long story short, when she, Yukiko and fellow friend Yuko were all in school, they all had dreams and hopes for the future. And, well, for some life turns out as they wanted and for others, not so much. Saeki’s story could be yours and mine and it made all the more poignant by the fact that she and Yukiko don’t interact with each other during the story except for one postcard. I found myself *blinking* a lot during her story. Finally the last story deals with Yukiko as we end our journey with her. There’s a fine sense of resolution with her and I am so impressed that Yoshinaga managed to end the story with a great sense of connection between Yukiko, Mari and Mari’s Yukiko’s Grandmother.
Artwise, Yoshinaga treads a fine line between very watercoloury pencil lines for her characters to more absurdist artwork that is more frequent in Not Love… The pace of the story means that I can appreciate her artwork more as I leaf back through the book. There’s a stillness to some of the pages that makes you feel every sigh, sob and laugh. The cover and cover inlays of the book are in colour and I would love to see more of Yoshinaga’s work in colour. There’s a kind of vintage vibrancy to her colour work that I feel like.
Ultimately, the book is less about the trials of Yukiko, Mari and the others than it is about the mirror being put against our own lives as we struggle to make it in the world. You will see something of your own life in these pages and it’s nice to let it out for air once in a while. Ms. Yoshinaga’s All My Darling Daughters helps you do just that.
Psst: (Shameless promotion) If you want to buy this from Amazon, click on the image of the book and I’ll get a cut ;-D
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