Abandon the Old In Tokyo - Yoshihiro Tatsumi (1970)

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.