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mundozurdo's review
5.0
First I rated this book fewer stars because the epilogue unsettled and irritated me.
Now, a few days after putting the book aside, I've logged back on because I realized the epilogue is GENIUS---as is the rest of the book. Wonderful reading
Now, a few days after putting the book aside, I've logged back on because I realized the epilogue is GENIUS---as is the rest of the book. Wonderful reading
thegayngelgabriel's review
3.0
3.5. I really liked watching the development of the forms Tatsumi would eventually become famous for, especially the various arguments about the nature, future, and mechanics of manga the author has, mostly with his brother. That relationship, in fact, was the most compelling part of this memoir for me.
btmarino84's review
5.0
I really like the genre here. That kind of...micro-epic. The big story traversing decades, dealing with all the issues of an entire country and industry but really focusing on one man and his friends and the minutiae of his work.
It's fascinating watching him slowly figuring out more and more what he wants to do visually and storywise. His stuff gradually moves to a darker aesthetic but it's still genre but he has a realization towards the end of the book about "telling stories that could happen to anybody" which I think is a beautiful little foreshadowing of the work he would get most famous for (i definitely want to read some of those older stories now).
I also really enjoyed how much respect and love he clearly had for Tezuka's work, despite the fact that often his work is seen as a conscious rebuttal to it.
RIP
It's fascinating watching him slowly figuring out more and more what he wants to do visually and storywise. His stuff gradually moves to a darker aesthetic but it's still genre but he has a realization towards the end of the book about "telling stories that could happen to anybody" which I think is a beautiful little foreshadowing of the work he would get most famous for (i definitely want to read some of those older stories now).
I also really enjoyed how much respect and love he clearly had for Tezuka's work, despite the fact that often his work is seen as a conscious rebuttal to it.
RIP
lucyblack's review
1.0
I kept reading and kept reading and I waited and waited for this to get more interesting and it didn't. It is just about Manga and publishers and Manga and publishers.
ainiali's review
4.0
Using an avatar, Hiroshi Katsumi, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, a renown mangaka (manga author/artist) tells the story of his creative life from when he was a teenager in 1945, right after WW2 ends thru to 1960 when he was around late 20's to early 30's. What I really enjoyed about this memoir is the way things work in those day in manga industry and slowly changing throughout the years because of various influences. I've read [b:Bakuman, Vol. 1: Dreams and Reality|7327286|Bakuman, Vol. 1 Dreams and Reality (Bakuman, #1)|Tsugumi Ohba|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1297207160l/7327286._SY75_.jpg|6931373], another manga series that tells the story of how two young mangaka able to published their work and it felt great to know the story of earlier days of manga. The author also the one that coined the term 'gekiga', a term that defined by google as 'dramatic pictures' which to differentiate between manga for adult and children. His works also had been mentioned quite a few times in books and tv series that I consumed which make me want to read about him. and that's it? Oh, well. Goodreads had been recommending this book from the day I found the recommendation feature and finally, I put it out of misery of telling me to read it (LOL)
I enjoyed reading this but the way they ended the book was a bit abrupt(?). In the end, Hiroshi
Spoiler
realized how important gekiga to himdarren_cormier's review
4.0
I wish I knew more about Tatsumi before I started reading the book. I took it out of the library primarily due to a few factors: 1) 2011 is my Year of the Graphic Novel; 2) I had not seen a graphic novel with as epic a page count as this one (855 pages including the appendix--I'm a notes reader), so I thought it would be an ambitious read; 3) the scope of the book seemed interesting for a graphic novel, and ambitious writers, even if they fail in their ambitions, always appeal to me, sometimes more than safe writers; 4) it was in the same area as a few other books I had been looking for; 5) it was published by Drawn and Quarterly, who I have quickly realized are almost flawless in their book selections. Drawn and Quarterly in the graphic novel equivalent of Matador or 4AD Records: if you like one or two releases from this label/publication, chances are you will like almost everything they produce.
The book chronicles Tatsumi's (or Katsumi's, as he calls himself in the book) life starting from when he began writing four-panel comic strips to the point when he became a major force in the Japanese manga marketplace, and the gekiga he was working on became an accepted form. The fact that I knew so little about this author and the history of manga, and his notable place in the history and evolution of manga, made the book both fascinating and also a bit unfamiliar.
If someone is not daunted by an 800+ page book, I highly recommend it. And since it is a graphic novel, it's length (and subsequent reading time) can be significantly reduced. I cannot give this bildungsroman 5 stars, though, primarily based upon my own Western reading conventions. There are many times where Tatsumi introduces information or a character, and tells us in an aside in the panel itself what is to happen with that character. For instance, in the beginning of the story, a young Katsumi is asked by his father to make a delivery for him to a couple of women. He does, and the women read the letters attached to the delivery. An aside in the panel says that Katsumi would not understand the role of these women in his father's life until much later in his own life, and the author then drops that thread. We never return to it, and are never told anything about those women, or his father, etc. There is also a small plot thread involving a young female classmate of Katsumi's sister, who accompanies her to school everyday. After a certain time the classmate comes to the house late repeatedly. It is inferred this is in order to have a 30-second interaction with Katsumi, who always answers the door. We are told in another panel aside that someone would try to play matchmaker between Katsumi and this girl four years later, but we are never shown the results of this romantic interference. There are other instances of this in the book where future information is given the reader but we never reach the point where this information is relevant.
Katsumi also provides historical, societal, and cultural information to the reader throughout the book, letting us know what is happening in Japan at the time politically, what films are showing, what music is popular, a veritable Japanese historical encyclopedia. This is a very effective structure and helps to establish time and setting of the novel.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give the book is that it makes me want to read more about Tatsumi, and to try to find some of his early manga/gegika stories, if only to fill in the blanks of the stories he began in A Drifting Life. Much as I found the book in the library on a random search through for other books, perhaps I will discover some of Tatsumi's early works while looking for something else.
The book chronicles Tatsumi's (or Katsumi's, as he calls himself in the book) life starting from when he began writing four-panel comic strips to the point when he became a major force in the Japanese manga marketplace, and the gekiga he was working on became an accepted form. The fact that I knew so little about this author and the history of manga, and his notable place in the history and evolution of manga, made the book both fascinating and also a bit unfamiliar.
If someone is not daunted by an 800+ page book, I highly recommend it. And since it is a graphic novel, it's length (and subsequent reading time) can be significantly reduced. I cannot give this bildungsroman 5 stars, though, primarily based upon my own Western reading conventions. There are many times where Tatsumi introduces information or a character, and tells us in an aside in the panel itself what is to happen with that character. For instance, in the beginning of the story, a young Katsumi is asked by his father to make a delivery for him to a couple of women. He does, and the women read the letters attached to the delivery. An aside in the panel says that Katsumi would not understand the role of these women in his father's life until much later in his own life, and the author then drops that thread. We never return to it, and are never told anything about those women, or his father, etc. There is also a small plot thread involving a young female classmate of Katsumi's sister, who accompanies her to school everyday. After a certain time the classmate comes to the house late repeatedly. It is inferred this is in order to have a 30-second interaction with Katsumi, who always answers the door. We are told in another panel aside that someone would try to play matchmaker between Katsumi and this girl four years later, but we are never shown the results of this romantic interference. There are other instances of this in the book where future information is given the reader but we never reach the point where this information is relevant.
Katsumi also provides historical, societal, and cultural information to the reader throughout the book, letting us know what is happening in Japan at the time politically, what films are showing, what music is popular, a veritable Japanese historical encyclopedia. This is a very effective structure and helps to establish time and setting of the novel.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can give the book is that it makes me want to read more about Tatsumi, and to try to find some of his early manga/gegika stories, if only to fill in the blanks of the stories he began in A Drifting Life. Much as I found the book in the library on a random search through for other books, perhaps I will discover some of Tatsumi's early works while looking for something else.
chukg's review
4.0
I was not at all familiar with Tatsumi's work and this is a very large book. It was interesting seeing the story of his career and family, plus there were snippets of Japanese history I didn't know about. I think this might have been more interesting to someone who knows more about manga, but it was still enjoyable.