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▼ KANTA ON MANGA / Black Winter Stories That Strike a Chord
- Category:Other
The manga this week
Sanju Mariko (Eighty-year-old Mariko)
By Yuki Ozawa (Kodansha)
Chisako Wakatake is a newcomer to the literary world, winning the Akutagawa Prize for literature in January at the age of 63. She categorizes her award-winning work “Ora ora de Hitori Igumo” as a “gento” (black winter) novel.
This term stems from the ancient Chinese philosophy that matches the four seasons with four colors: blue for spring (seishun), vermilion for summer (shuka), white for autumn (hakushu) and black for winter (gento). In literature, “seishun” stories refer to works that depict young people’s lives. In this respect, Wakatake’s gento novel is at the opposite end of the spectrum — its protagonist Momoko is a 74-year-old woman who speaks in an Iwate Prefecture dialect.
I wondered if there was a “gento” manga, and soon came up with the manga for this week. In fact, this work shows an amazing synchronicity with Wakatake’s novel. The protagonist of the manga is 80 years old, so the “winter” here is even bleaker than in the novel. This manga, by the way, was published before the novel.
The manga’s protagonist is Mariko Koda, a veteran writer who lives with her son, grandson and their families. Her husband is already dead. One day, a former writer friend dies unattended. This leads Mariko to realize that she’s a burden to her family, and she leaves the house with only a small backpack. But she learns that as an elderly single woman trying to be socially independent, she faces many difficulties and obstacles. Can a wandering 80-year-old find a safe haven for herself?
Momoko and Mariko have different backgrounds and living environments. Nevertheless, they make a similar impression on the reader, as both stories portray women who are about to set out to live just for themselves after finishing roles as wives and mothers.
This theme is probably more difficult to deal with in manga than in a prose, since manga has to explicitly show the protagonist’s old age, wrinkles and all. But manga artist Yuki Ozawa has ingeniously overcome this problem by depicting a charming Mariko gifted with bright, twinkling “shojo manga eyes.”
Some people may feel that it’s impossible for an 80-year-old to stay overnight at an internet cafe, suddenly start living with a boyfriend, or get hooked on an online game. In the “Ora ora” novel, however, Momoko realizes that the definition of old age has just been created by the existing social culture. In other words, when we say “old people should act a certain way,” this view is being forced through by stereotypical societal norms, just like saying women and men should act a certain way.
“If I don’t let these things bother me, I just may be able to go unexpectedly far,” Momoko says. This is the real message that both the gento novel and manga mean to convey, striking a chord with readers.
Mariko has lost her contract with a literary magazine, so to continue writing, she plans to create her own online magazine. It’s exciting to think that, under such circumstances, the stories she will be writing must be stories like “Ora ora.”
Ishida is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior writer whose areas of expertise include manga and anime.
Sanju Mariko (Eighty-year-old Mariko)
By Yuki Ozawa (Kodansha)
Chisako Wakatake is a newcomer to the literary world, winning the Akutagawa Prize for literature in January at the age of 63. She categorizes her award-winning work “Ora ora de Hitori Igumo” as a “gento” (black winter) novel.
This term stems from the ancient Chinese philosophy that matches the four seasons with four colors: blue for spring (seishun), vermilion for summer (shuka), white for autumn (hakushu) and black for winter (gento). In literature, “seishun” stories refer to works that depict young people’s lives. In this respect, Wakatake’s gento novel is at the opposite end of the spectrum — its protagonist Momoko is a 74-year-old woman who speaks in an Iwate Prefecture dialect.
I wondered if there was a “gento” manga, and soon came up with the manga for this week. In fact, this work shows an amazing synchronicity with Wakatake’s novel. The protagonist of the manga is 80 years old, so the “winter” here is even bleaker than in the novel. This manga, by the way, was published before the novel.
The manga’s protagonist is Mariko Koda, a veteran writer who lives with her son, grandson and their families. Her husband is already dead. One day, a former writer friend dies unattended. This leads Mariko to realize that she’s a burden to her family, and she leaves the house with only a small backpack. But she learns that as an elderly single woman trying to be socially independent, she faces many difficulties and obstacles. Can a wandering 80-year-old find a safe haven for herself?
Momoko and Mariko have different backgrounds and living environments. Nevertheless, they make a similar impression on the reader, as both stories portray women who are about to set out to live just for themselves after finishing roles as wives and mothers.
This theme is probably more difficult to deal with in manga than in a prose, since manga has to explicitly show the protagonist’s old age, wrinkles and all. But manga artist Yuki Ozawa has ingeniously overcome this problem by depicting a charming Mariko gifted with bright, twinkling “shojo manga eyes.”
Some people may feel that it’s impossible for an 80-year-old to stay overnight at an internet cafe, suddenly start living with a boyfriend, or get hooked on an online game. In the “Ora ora” novel, however, Momoko realizes that the definition of old age has just been created by the existing social culture. In other words, when we say “old people should act a certain way,” this view is being forced through by stereotypical societal norms, just like saying women and men should act a certain way.
“If I don’t let these things bother me, I just may be able to go unexpectedly far,” Momoko says. This is the real message that both the gento novel and manga mean to convey, striking a chord with readers.
Mariko has lost her contract with a literary magazine, so to continue writing, she plans to create her own online magazine. It’s exciting to think that, under such circumstances, the stories she will be writing must be stories like “Ora ora.”
Ishida is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior writer whose areas of expertise include manga and anime.
- March 30, 2018
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