Abandon the old in
Tokyo is a collection of short Manga stories by artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi
which were first serialised in various magazines in early 1970. Tatsumi's work
is widely regarded as the first ‘Gekiga’ which is the Japanese term
more
akin to the term ‘graphic novel’ in the West, Tatsumi coined the term
originally in 1957 when he did not want his art to be considered to be
something aimed at children. This collection was actually Tatsumis
second batch after his first release in 1969 of The push man and other stories but his earliest work was
Black Blizzard which began the 'Gekiga' genre off back in 1956.
Abandon the old In Tokyo is perhaps the most
popular of his works in the West and was first published in English in
2006, from there is gained a few awards such as Best U.S Edition of
Foreign Material and paved the way for future releases
of his work in the West.
The great thing about this title is you can easily pick it up in English to own if you go on Amazon as it is pretty cheap new or even used, but If you really don't want to pay for it you can find it on sites like Manga Reader quite easily which is what I did originally. However I now want to own it and will be picking up the other two short story collections along the way and I really would suggest you do too if you're curious enough as the covers look fantastic.
The stories presented in this Manga are not related in terms of characters but they all take place in the same city and follow the plights of a persons daily life, their struggles and their responsibilities, each story is really not very long and gets right to the point. I shan't go spoiling anything because I think each story is well worth reading fresh and could honestly be spoiled in a single sentence I would rather speak about the themes and how they made me feel as a reader.
First though I would like to speak about the art style, which is very simplistic in terms of character designs, it reminds me of something more like Astro Boy in that respect but I think where it really shines is the art of the world itself, it really shows how congested and busy the world is. Especially in the story relating to noise pollution and how when reading it by seeing the bombardment of sound the character has to deal with on his commute.
One major gripe I have with the art is that pretty much all the characters look the same, I generally thought it was the same character in about 4 of the stories which is not the case, It did take me out of some of the stories to some degree and I know a lot of artists get accused of 'same face' syndrome but this was literally a complete copy of a character used about 4 or 5 times, I can forgive this as the stories were really good but I would have preferred a bit more variation where possible.
I like that the Manga does not really shy away
from the more ‘disgusting’ aspects of human life like disfigurement, old
age and their effects. It creates a much more human story where not
everything is perfect and anything in life can hit
you when you least expect it, it also shows that we as humans have a
lot of things that perhaps make us ashamed of ourselves or the race in
general but that they are all aspects of life that are biological,
particularly sex. There is one story in which I male
remembers when he walked in on seeing his friends Parents having sex
and was embarrassed and disgusted by seeing parents who are seen as these authoritative figures in life reverting to what he believed were animals.
In a lot of cases the tales focus on one person
taking care of someone or something else, the man and his elderly
mother, the father and his daughter a man and his monkey and even a man
and his failing business. Each of these stories have
the same theme in that each character has tried their best to take care
of someone or something because that is the responsibility that has
fallen upon them, although brief the author does well to portray each
characters internal struggle with themselves and
how their responsibility has changed their life. It shows also how
these characters carry the weight of the world on their shoulders and in
most cases cannot cope, with disastrous effects.
Another Theme of the stories revolves around
fear and social anxiety, specifically in one story where a man no longer
wishes to work for his company and hands in his resignation only to
lose an arm in an accident, due to losing his arm
he can no longer find work and everything goes wrong for him, the story
ends with him being in a large crowd of people and running in fear. The
anxiety aspect is quite well done throughout and doesn’t always make it
the main point of the story, in many cases
it just shows how crowded and busy the streets of Tokyo are on the
commutes to work and to me just seeing that imagery and imagining being
in those situations on a commute get me all anxious, I hate rush hour
and certain times of the working day as it is and
just thinking about having to deal with those situations makes me
shudder.
I think we need to remember this was written in
the 70s when the male was the breadwinner primarily and in Japan there
was a great sense of honour in being the patriarch of a family. In most
of these stories the male is put in fear by his
own failings and how this has effected the female members of his
family, be this being unable to afford to look after his elderly mother,
being able to commit to his fiancé or being able to live with the shame
of his daughter having an affair with the company
president but taking care of the product (a child) of that affair.
This may be more relaxed nowadays in most
places but there seems to be this immense pressure of day to day life
forced upon most of the male characters of these stories some of which
are out of their control and some of which are their
own fault. These events and pressures only shows their downward spiral
which in every occasion ends up negatively for them but also shows their
yearning for a simpler life that would possibly make them a happier
individual. I think a lot of us have wanted
to sometimes jack in their job or commitments and just escape some
time, I don’t even live in a city myself but sometimes I just want to
move away and live in the middle of nowhere and relax, but that’s just a
temporary feeling and I feel the characters in
these stories have had this feeling for a long time.
The message to me in these tale generally
revolve around the monotony of life, especially as an adult and how you
can become a negative person if you get stuck in such monotony. I think
this speaks to me because I’m in a full time job where
I work long hours and I think with anyone in full time employment they
can get stuck in a rut and really dread the first shift of the week. I
think this Manga reminds me to make use of my free time well and always
try and do something that I can enjoy otherwise
I’ll focus too much on my professional life and let that take over
entirely.
Overall I enjoyed reading this for the brief
time that I did as it was certainly different from any kind of Manga I
have read before, it is definitely not something I could compare in
anyway to the likes of Jump Manga and I appreciate that.
I’m happy I picked this at random as it really opened my eyes to the
different genres that exist in the Manga world and I hope to find more
like it quite soon as I am about to order some of Tatsumi's other works
now on Amazon. If you’re looking for something
different that is not too time consuming then seriously consider giving
this a read.
