Doing Time manga review

It’s been a while since I read something I actually enjoyed. Doing Time by Kazuichi Hanawa is quite similar to Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen which I mentioned a few weeks ago, in that it’s a short chronicle of the author’s time spent behind bars. Both titles take a slice of life approach to the subject, showing what happens day in and day out. Who they meet, what they do, what they wear, where they sleep, and so on and so forth. If you read closely you’ll even see Hei no Naka referred to in Doing Time afterward, translated as “Some guys never learn behind bars.”

The similarities are many, but the difference in tone is astounding. Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen has a puffed up, self-righteous moralizing tone to it while Doing Time largely steers clear of discussions of right and wrong and just focuses on everyday life. Furthermore, since Doing Time is originally a manga, written and drawn by the actual prisoner, while Hei no Naka is a manga adaptation of a novel, Doing Time has a livelier, more vivid and more realistic feel to the art and the details of life.

Comparing the two series would be an interesting exercise, seeing as there aren’t that many autobiographical titles set in prison. It would be an interesting exercise for someone else to do, but today I’m just here to talk about Doing Time. As usual, the summary:

Doing_Time_p_000bSummary 1: Up to now, Kazuichi Hanawa expressed himself through works of fiction. The fantastic world of tales from the Middle Ages in Japan was his favorite setting. In 1994 Hanawa was arrested for owning a firearm. An avid collector of guns, he was caught whilst testing a remodeled handgun in the backwoods, miles away from anyone, and imprisoned for three years. Forbidden to record any details whilst incarcerated, Hanawa recreated his time inside after his release. He did so with a meticulousness rarely found in comics as every detail of his cell, every meal that was served, the daily habits of his cell-mates and, above all, the rigid regime are minutely noted and bring us into the very mindset of a Japanese prisoner. Made into a live action movie in 2002 by Sai Yoichi (All Under the Moon).

Summary 2: In 1994 the mangaka Kazuichi Hanawa was arrested on firearms offences and sentanced to three years in prison. Once released, Hanawa set about creating this autobiographical record of his life behind bars. The first few chapters relate to his incarceration in jail whilst awaiting trial and the rest of the work covers his actual prison sentance. There is no ongoing plot but, rather, each chapter relates in minute detail the customs and rituals of prison life – food, clothing, rules, work, exercise, bathing and so on and so forth. The only things omitted are the background of the author’s crime, trial, sentancing and release but an interview with the author and a commentary by the anime critic Tomohide Kure (who was involved in Hanawa’s defence) are included to shed some light on these aspects.

Most reviews will note how resigned to his lot and almost content the main character seems, and they’re right. Apart from the first chapter that deals with his nicotine cravings and the chapter about his annoyance at having to yell “Pleeease!” when he wants anything from the guards, his view of prison life seems remarkably positive. He and the other prisoners even look forward with great excitement to certain simple pleasures, like getting a special bread once a month or their New Year’s meal.

I'm going to try folding one of these soon.
I’m going to try folding one of these.

But when you think about it, there’s no reason why Hanawa shouldn’t be content. The Japanese prison he describes seems like a veritable paradise compared to what I know of prisons in other cultures. Your average prisoner in, say, Mali or Bolivia would kill to share a comfy, disease-free cell with only four other people. They get three healthy meals a day, they have running water, their cells are huge and spacious, their cell toilet even has a privacy screen, etc. Heck, lots of people on the outside even in Japan would be glad to have digs like that.

Not only that, but they also have all kinds of privileges that one wouldn’t expect prisoners to get. For example some prisoners have personal shavers. The prisoners also keep bottles (unclear if they’re glass or plastic) of sauce in their cell, surely a potential weapon if there ever was one. They’re even allowed to watch TV – not a TV in a general room but TVs right in their own cells, plus they have access to tons of books and all the latest magazines, as long as they’re considered ‘educational.’

And you might think, well that must be a minimum-security prison for people who haven’t done anything too serious, right? That’s what I thought at first, but later on the story introduces armed robbers and cold-blooded murderers, casually and unrepentantly chatting about their crimes and looking forward to their New Years’ treats just like everybody else. As the author wryly comments on one page, prison is so nice there’s no incentive to go straight!

In a sense, reading Doing Time is a good way to get a sense of Japanese culture as a whole. You learn a lot from the needless bureacracy, the tightly regimented lifestyles (even right down to when to walk, when to trot, when to look out the window and when not to) and the relative freedom and comfort the prisoners enjoy. It’s something only a country with a relatively low rate of violent crime (even taking into account the thousands of crimes the Japanese police hide every year) can get away with. It might be an interesting read for the Japanophile just for that alone.

For everyone else, Doing Time is still a good read, being a rare non-dreary, non-preachy tale of prison slice-of-life. You’ll come away feeling quite upbeat and cheerful, and more than a little hungry after pages upon pages of delicious-looking prison food. It’s been a while since I reviewed something I recommend and would be happy to re-read, but I think most people would have a good time, aha, with Doing Time.

Ayako manga review

Ayako by Osamu Tezuka is supposed to be a classic of the genre by the supposed greatest mangaka of all time. Or so one would suppose to hear the way people go on and on about him. To be honest I’m not that familiar with Tezuka’s works apart from a little Astroboy (the new movie) and a little Black Jack, but if Ayako is anything to go by, I’m not missing much.

Btw, I’m not using the cover as a featured image as I usually do, because the front cover is a naked girl and the back cover is a silhouette of a woman hanging herself. When a ‘classic’ manga has to resort to cheap titillation to sell itself, that should tell you everything you need to know. Anyway, on with the official blurb:

Opening a few years after the end of World War II and covering almost a quarter-century, here is comics master Osamu Tezuka’s most direct and sustained critique of Japan’s fate in the aftermath of total defeat. Unusually devoid of cartoon premises yet shot through with dark voyeuristic humor, Ayako looms as a pinnacle of Naturalist literature in Japan with few peers even in prose, the striking heroine a potent emblem of things left unseen following the war.

Ayako p085The year is 1949. Crushed by the Allied Powers, occupied by General MacArthur’s armies, Japan has been experiencing massive change. Agricultural reform is dissolving large estates and redistributing plots to tenant farmers—terrible news, if you’re landowners like the archconservative Tenge family.

For patriarch Sakuemon, the chagrin of one of his sons coming home alive from a P.O.W. camp instead of having died for the Emperor is topped only by the revelation that another of his is consorting with “the reds.” What solace does he have but his youngest Ayako, apple of his eye, at once daughter and granddaughter?

Delving into some of the period’s true mysteries, which remain murky to this day, Tezuka’s Zolaeqsque tapestry delivers thrill and satisfaction in spades. Another page-turning classic from an irreplaceable artist who was as astute an admirer of the Russian masters and Nordic playwrights as of Walt Disney, Ayako is a must-read for comics connoisseurs and curious literati.

Ayako p052All right, let’s get one thing out of the way first – this is no “sustained critique of Japan’s” blah blah blah anything. For the first three or four chapters, yes, Tezuka does cover some of the tensions brought about by the occupation and the conflicting interests of conqueror and subject.

But that’s just in the very beginning, after that Ayako devolves into a bodice-ripping page-turner in the vein of Sidney Sheldon or V.C. Andrews. Sex, incest, betrayals, conspiracy, more sex and then Tezuka throws in a typically Japanese nonsensical downer ending and bam, we have a classic.

The tl;dr version of the story is that Ayako, the title character is born when Ichiro Tenge offers his wife Su’e up to his dad Sakuemon in exchange for an inheritance. Ayako is unlucky enough to learn too much of a crime committed by her uncle/half-brother Jiro Tenge and is locked away in a basement for 23 years to keep her quiet.

During that time she manages to have an affair with her uncle/half-brother Shiro Tenge, but she eventually breaks out, makes her way over to Jiro, acts crazy for a while, hooks up with the son of Jiro’s sworn enemy and then everybody except Ayako dies in a cave-in caused by Shiro, his way of purging the land of the treacherous, incestuous Tenge clan.

Ayako p313All that took about 600+ pages, but as I said it was quite the page-turner in a train-wreck kind of way, so I read the whole thing in one night. And I suppose it IS a classic, in the way some of Sidney Sheldon’s books are classics – classics of beach literature, that is. I’m comparing it to Sheldon’s stuff because Ayako contains the same mix of sex, crime and tragedy that he was so famous for.

If that’s the kind of drama that appeals to you, Ayako is right up your alley. It’s a different kind of classic from what I was expecting, but I suppose 70’s manga fans like a good twisted drama as much as the next person, which is why this manga is (undeservingly, IMO) famous.

For all that the main character is female, though, the women in this manga come across very poorly indeed. It might have been deliberate, to show how post-war Japan was, and in many ways still is a man’s world. Either way the women in Ayako are all helpless victims and sex objects relegated to one of two roles: housewife or whore (and in one unfortunate case, both).

Oh, but it gets worse. Not only are they helpless whores and housewives but also any attempt they make to break out of those roles is almost immediately punished with death as if to say “Stay in the kitchen/bedroom, woman!”

Ayako p699For example Su’e, Ayako’s mother, spends years as a quiet housewife and the family patriarch’s sex slave. When she finally tries to leave with Ayako, her husband kills her. End of her story.

Then there’s Jiro’s temporary squeeze Michiko (or was it Machiko?). She’s fine when she’s obediently sleeping with military officers on his orders, but the minute she tries to rebel against that, boom kaboom! No more Michiko.

Or let’s take Naoko, the Tenge little sister who spends years as a dutiful housewife. The minute she tries to get revenge on Jiro for killing her old boyfriend she gets drawn back into the family cesspit and alas, no more Naoko.

The two women who do survive the whole fiasco, Ayako herself and her stepmother/grandmother, seemingly only do so because they don’t bother fighting against their roles or against the men in their lives. The stepmother because she never even attempts to resist and Ayako because she gave up after a brief struggle. Sure she runs away from home eventually, but it’s all a matter of jumping from the care of one man (Shiro) to another (Jiro) and to another (Hanao). Just when the manga is about to get interesting, when Ayako is finally all alone, it ends. So… yeah.

Long story short, if you want something tasteful and classy, don’t get Ayako. If you want a trashy page-turner that will leave a bad taste in your mouth and leave you wondering what’s so great about Osamu Tezuka, get Ayako. End of story.

Red colored elegy manga review

Drawn & Quarterly strikes again! But at least Red Colored Elegy isn’t anywhere near as unpleasant and as nonsensical as yesterday’s A Single Match. Red Colored Elegy is supposedly a very influential work in the history of alternative manga and narrative-wise at least I can see why. The blurb on the back of the book is unusually long and effusive, but since I’d rather spend time talking about my thoughts about the manga rather than what it’s about, I’m going to type it out anyway:

Seiichi Hayashi produced Red Colored Elegy between 1970 and 1971, in the aftermath of a politically turbulent and culturally vibrant decade that promised but failed to deliver new possibilities. With a combination of sparse line work and visual codes borrowed from animation and film, the quiet melancholy lives of a young couple struggling to make ends meet are beautifully captured in this poetic masterpiece.

Uninvolved with the political movements of the time, Ichiro and Sachiko hope for something better, but they’re not revolutionaries; their spare time is spent drinking, smoking, daydreaming, and sleeping – together and at times with others.

While Ichiro attempts to make a living from his comics, Sachiko’s parents are eager to arrange a marriage for her, but Ichiro doesn’t seem interested. Both in their relationship and at work, Ichiro and Sachiko are unable to say the things they need to say, and like any couple, at times say things to each other that they do not mean, ultimately communicating as much with their body language and what remains unsaid as with words.

Red Colored Elegy is informed as much by underground comics of the time as it is by the French Nouvelle Vague, and its cultural referents range from James Dean to Ken Takakura. Its influence in Japan was so large that Morio Agata, a prominent Japanese folk musician and singer songwriter, debuted with a love song written and named after it.

Red Colored Elegy p015_2RSo that’s it for the content. To spoil a bit, Ichiro and Sachiko break up near the end. She moves on (or attempts to) with a coworker or hers while Ichiro slouches around getting drunk and complaining about how miserable he is – even though he’s the one who scuppered their chances at getting back together with his uncooperative attitude. Needy, whiny and unfaithful though Sachiko may be, she can definitely do better than Ichiro so their breakup is a happy ending, of sorts.

But as I said, I can see how this would be influential. The story is told in a vague, disjointed manner, but there’s a sequence to the events, there are recurring characters, things move from Point A to B in a meandering but inevitable way. As long as you make your point in the end, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the process.

Plus I bet the “sparse artwork” style must have been a great inspiration to mangaka who can’t draw all over Japan. Interesting characters can cover mediocre art much better than bad characters/story-telling can make up for good art. That said, Seiichi Hayashi does show at several points that he’s an excellent artist when he wants to be. The idiosyncratic design choices seem to be a deliberate decision. And of course if your manga becomes a hit, critics will find something nice to say about the art no matter how bad it is. In fact it might become your signature feature, as with the author of Akagi/Kaiji.

Red Colored Elegy p053_1LThird source of inspiration: the blah-ness and dreariness of Sachiko and Ichiro’s relationship. Though sadly enough such depictions haven’t caught on as much as I would like. I’m probably reading the wrong kind of manga and should try more alternative manga (…no.) but romantic relationships in manga tend to be either over-the-top lovey-dovey with some stupid misunderstandings thrown in or thoroughly dysfunctional from start to finish but they stay together because he’s the hero and she’s the heroine.

Red Colored Elegy instead paints a realistically bleak picture of a relationship that’s going nowhere. Go to work, work work work, drink after work, come home, work some more, argue, sleep together or not sleep together, wake up the next day and start all over again. Except nothing in life ever stays the same, so external events (particularly the death of Ichiro’s father), internal conflicts and their own personal demons all conspire to drive the couple apart, most likely for good. Is that realistic or what? Not saying happy, normal relationships are any less ‘real’ but

That said, I have an innate dislike for stories about cohabiting couples, since I am morally opposed to that practice. Putting my beliefs aside, though, I think Seiichi Hayashi made an excellent case against irresponsible shacking up just by depicting Ichiro and Sachiko’s dreary everyday existence. Their lack of planning, lack of responsibility, lack of commitment despite their physical relationship, lack of exclusivity and their relationship’s abrupt end is all one big “Babies shouldn’t be making babies!” advertisement, whether it means to be or not.

That doesn’t mean I enjoyed Red Colored Elegy, though. It might be interesting for avant-garde manga buffs or people looking for a short manga light on dialog. That’s about it, really.

A Single Match (Red Kimono) manga review

A Single Match (not sure where the title Red Kimono comes from, but it seems to be an alternative title) is a weird  and boring manga brought to the west by Drawn & Quarterly, popular publishers of alternative graphic fiction. I didn’t know what “alternative graphic fiction” was before I read this, but now I know it’s just a short way of saying “weird rambling stuff that doesn’t make much sense but no one wants to admit they don’t get it, so they call it ‘alternative’.” It was so bad that I barely made it through the first three chapters. Still I’m glad I tried it just because now I know better than to pick up anything ‘alternative’ next time.

The story summary as given on the book jacket:

Garo’s gekiga Oji Suzuki explores memory, relationships, and loss with shifting narrative and a splash of surrealist humor. A young man catches a cold after being soaked in the rain and is tended to by his grandmother. He drifts, dreaming of a train trip with an older brother he doesn’t have. A traveling salesman comes across a boy lying in the middle of the road and stops to have a cigarette and tell a story that flows through memories of faces and places. A young woman walks along the river with her bicycle and a friend—who is nothing more than a disembodied head—discussing past times together, memories they have of each other. Suzuki masterfully plumbs the dissolute depths of the human condition—neediness, disappointment, and betrayal. He literally bathes his characters in expansive shadows that paradoxically reveal as much as they obscure. Suzuki is one of the most talented and poetic alternative cartoonists in Japan. A Single Match is his first English collection.

If that sounds like something you might like, go for it. For me it was just disturbing, disgusting and nonsensical. I mean, I can kind of see what the attraction is supposed to be: Suzuki describes vague snatches of people’s lives and leaves you to fill in the gaps. What happened before, what happened afterwards, what’s really going on, that sort of thing.

If I had to summarize the overall effect, though, it’s like a puddle of vomit. If you stare at it long enough you can pick out individual bits – that used to be a burger, that wobbly bit was probably a hot dog and so on, but at the end of the day you’re still staring at a puddle of vomit. It may sound like I’m using strong language, but the unpleasant events of chapter 2 in particular made me want to retch, hence the analogy.

tl;dr – If you like to spend time trying to make sense of stuff that doesn’t really make sense in the first place, A Single Match might be your thing. In fact, here’s a “proper” review by someone who’s paid to find the good in the worst of things: The Comics Journal review of A Single Match. However if, like me, you’re just looking for regular, ‘normal’ manga to read, avoid avoid avoid.

Maria the Convenience Store Girl volume 1 manga review

Maria the Convenience Store Girl is a 4-volume seinen slice of life manga written and illustrated by Mitsuru Miura. It was licensed in English by Netcomics and can still be read on their site for a small fee ($0.25 per chapter. I shudder to think how little the translator was paid). The Netcomics summary looks like this:

Maria is a sweet country girl who ventures to Tokyo to honor a favor for her late grandmother. Waiting for her at her destination – the Rosy Convenience Store in Misakigaoka – are the Tomekichi brothers, struggling with an increasingly senile grandfather, a clueless father, and a family business on the verge of bankruptcy. All seems hopeless, until one day Maria turns up on their doorstep – to the dismay of one brother in particular. To complicate matters, there are moody customers, ever-present food issues, and a shady inspector ready to strike at any moment.

Will Maria be able to save this little convenience store? Or is it doomed to fold?

A fun story that deals with life, love, and lunch, “Maria, The Convenience Store Girl” will make you feel warm inside–and maybe even a bit hungry!

Of course she’s going to be save it, otherwise this manga wouldn’t even exist. Maria is basically a perfect angel from on high who charms anyone and everyone she deals with in two pages flat. She’s earnest, naive, friendly, innocent (even when she’s randomly stripping to provide fanservice) and basically everything you would expect of a generic Mary Sue. They could easily have titled the series “Mary Sue Saves The Day,” since that is what every chapter boils down to.

No matter how serious the issue, whether it’s something minor like customers with dirty feet or something major like a woman trying to pass another man’s baby off as her boyfriend’s, all Maria has to do is smile and/or plead earnestly and everyone falls down at her feet and worships her knowledge and wisdom. “Maria showed me the error of my ways” is their everlasting refrain. It is ridiculously cheesy how she always ends up being the perfect solution to everyone’s problems. How Tokyo ever got along before she came along is beyond me.

Since that’s the case, there’s no need for me to read more than one volume of Maria the Convenience Store Girl. Heck, there’s no need to even read more than two or three chapters. Problem arise -> Maria solves it easily -> Everyone sings her praises -> Repeat from start. Even if more complex matters do arise in later volumes, it’s obvious she’s just going to solve them in her ‘innocent, country girl’ way, so there’s no reason to read it. The supporting cast only exists to make her look good, the art isn’t anything special, the little ‘comedy’ present is laughable, but not in a good way and long story short there’s no real reason to get this manga, not even for $0.25 a chapter.