{"id":23786,"date":"2021-02-28T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T08:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=23786"},"modified":"2021-02-27T19:23:33","modified_gmt":"2021-02-27T19:23:33","slug":"a-journal-of-my-father","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2021\/02\/28\/a-journal-of-my-father\/","title":{"rendered":"A Journal of my Father"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBy Jiro Taniguchi<\/strong> translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian<\/strong> with Chitoku Teshima<\/strong> (Fanfare-Ponent Mon)
\nISBN: 978-1-91209-743-2 (HB)<\/p>\n

Unless you’re a dedicated fan of manga, you probably haven’t heard of Taniguchi Jir\u00c5\u008d (14th August 1947-11 February 2017). Despite his immense talent as both writer and artist – in 2011, France knighted him a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres<\/em> – his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gekiga\u00e2\u20ac\u009d work has been slow to reach English speakers since his 1970 debut in Young Comic<\/strong> with Kareta Heya<\/em><\/strong> (A Desiccated Summer<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

With nearly 50 different series and collections to his credit – originally hard-edge crime like City Without Defense<\/strong>, The Wind of the West is White<\/strong>, Lindo 3<\/strong>, Blue Fighter<\/strong> and Knuckle Wars<\/strong> – the 1990s saw him move into more universal and mature themes with Kamigami no<\/em><\/strong> itadaki <\/em><\/strong>(The Summit of the Gods<\/strong>), Kamigami no itadaki<\/em><\/strong>, and – in 1997, in collaboration with Moebius – Ikaru<\/em><\/strong> (Icarus<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

He expanded into straight drama with Botchan no Jidai<\/em><\/strong>, Inu o Kau<\/em><\/strong> and the remarkable A Distant Neighborhood<\/strong> (a major, albeit Belgian, motion picture since 2010).<\/p>\n

Joking aside, Mr. Taniguchi was a major force in international comics and now his most personal masterpiece is at last available in English, thanks, I suspect to a career-long and most appreciative French connection. Hopefully, that will extend to digital editions fairly soon \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Beguilingly mild, understated and packed with suppressed and repressed emotion, Chichi no Koyami<\/em><\/strong> details how a quiet, diligent parent is called back to his home town after years away in Tokyo. Yoichi Yamashita<\/em> has spent decades away, carving out a life and family for himself while avoiding all contact with his own father.<\/p>\n

Now the old man is dead, and the dutiful son returns for the funeral rites. Talking with family and friends, he gradually learns of a man and life he never really knew and, as he re-examines his side of a never-changing story probably repeated in every household in the world, Yoichi reassesses and apply an uncompromising lens of hard-earned experience to the life he made after leaving so long ago.<\/p>\n

In dignified, revelatory slices, beginning with ‘A Sunny Place on the Floor’<\/em> and ‘Traces of Spring’<\/em>, he reconsiders his life. ‘Crimson Memories’<\/em>, ‘New Roads’<\/em>, ‘My Beautiful Mother’<\/em>, ‘Summer Recollections’<\/em>, ‘Separation’<\/em> and ‘Another Mother’ <\/em>fill in details like a detective thriller with all the clues and evoked memories of ‘A Particular Photograph’<\/em>, ‘My Uncle’s Words’<\/em>, ‘Revolving Seasons’<\/em> and ‘Hometown in Spring’<\/em> drawing him into long-delayed emotional metamorphosis and catharsis\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

Gentle and lyrical, rendered with staggering visual authenticity and ruthless honesty, this old, old story is mesmerising in its power to move: an emotional tonic every father and son should apply lavishly to their own experience and a truly grown-up picture book we should all use as manual to navigating family life.
\nChichi no Koyami<\/strong> by Jiro Taniguchi \u00c2\u00a9 Papier\/1995 Jiro Taniguchi. All rights reserved. \u00c2\u00a9 2021 Potent Mon for the English language edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jiro Taniguchi translated by Kumar Sivasubramanian with Chitoku Teshima (Fanfare-Ponent Mon) ISBN: 978-1-91209-743-2 (HB) Unless you’re a dedicated fan of manga, you probably haven’t heard of Taniguchi Jir\u00c5\u008d (14th August 1947-11 February 2017). Despite his immense talent as both writer and artist – in 2011, France knighted him a Chevalier of the Ordre des … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A Journal of my Father”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[239,122,216,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-historical","category-lifestyle","category-japanese-comics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-6bE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}