Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

The first thing about this collection of stories is that it is not for children. Who defies the norm, who writes a comics short story collection? A Japanese writer, of course. It defies the norm that a comics story should be long, should have a longer narrative arc.

It has eight short stories told in comics form. It doesn't tell one story in eight chapters. Why this long rambling passage on Japanese comics? Because this book is a perfect example of Japanese comics. The Japanese were much ahead of comics writers from other countries on this front - in presenting nonfiction books in comic form. Sometimes these comics weren't just fictional stories but were biographies and memoirs. Writing comics for grownups was a quintessentially Japanese thing, before others started copying it. One of the reasons for this is that there are comics written for both kids and grown-ups. Comics probably occupies a bigger literary landscape in Japan than regular books - there are probably more readers of comics there than there are readers of other kinds of books. Japanese writers believe in presenting stories in comic form. When I was thinking of reading a graphic novel today, I decided to pick it up. I got 'Abandon the Old in Tokyo' by Yoshihiro Tatsumi as a present from a friend sometime back.

The film, Tatsumi, is directed by Eric Khoo. Edition of International Material–Asia) in 2010 and the regards sur le monde award in Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2012.Ī full-length animated feature on the life and short stories of Yoshihiro Tatsumi was released in 2011. The same work garnered him multiple Eisner awards (Best Reality-Based Work and Best U.S. In 2009, he was awarded the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for his autobiography, A Drifting Life. Tatsumi received the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1972. This is one event in a seemingly coincidental rise to worldwide popularity that Tomine relates to in his introduction to the first volume of the aforementioned series. His work has been translated into many languages, and Canadian publisher Drawn and Quarterly have embarked on a project to publish an annual compendium of his works focusing each on the highlights of one year of his work (beginning with 1969), edited by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine. Yoshihiro Tatsumi (辰巳ヨシヒロ Tatsumi Yoshihiro, Jin Tennōji-ku, Osaka) was a Japanese manga artist who was widely credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative comics in Japan, having allegedly coined the term in 1957.

Abandon the Old in Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi