Environmental storytelling in comics is something that I’ve always admired and want to be better at. As a cartoonist I’m always thinking of better ways to tell visual stories, because it’s fun.
Mushishi is possibly my favorite comic of all time. It doesn’t just use the environment as storyteller, but tells stories about environments in a way you wouldn’t expect. Though it’s a series of stories about people and their relationships, neither are divorced from the world itself. I cannot recommend this series enough and it is a huge influence on my own work.
Some live in the deep darkness behind your eyelids. Some eat silence. Some thoughtlessly kill. Some simply drive men mad. Shortly after life emerged from the primordial ooze, these deadly creatures, mushi, came into terrifying being. And they still exist and wreak havoc in the world today. Ginko, a young man with a sardonic smile, has the knowledge and skill to save those plagued by mushi . . . perhaps.
My love for strange women began with a love of the tomboy, growing up in the ‘80s and 90’s with characters like Pippi Longstocking and George from The Famous Five. They’re young women who broke the rules of decorum or gender presentation—and they just always seemed to be having a lot more fun. Or at least more interesting experiences. This love of rebels and unruly women has stuck with me, and I think our depiction of women like this has become deeper and more varied. I just love a character who’s a bit of an odd duck, is irrepressible or voracious, or just plain messy. Nice is boring—give me the chaos.
Very few books have affected me more than this autobiographical Japanese manga. The book's author, artist, and protagonist is a young woman navigating her family relationships, mental health, and sexuality. In the grips of depression, desperate to be touched, the protagonist goes to an escort agency—but the plot is not the point.
Nagata’s willingness to “go there” feels so fresh, and is so vulnerable and heartfelt. As a queer person there was a lot to identify with, as a writer I took away a determination to try and be even half as vulnerable in my writing, and as a young woman I felt seen in a new way.
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is an honest and heartfelt look at one young woman's exploration of her sexuality, mental well-being, and growing up in our modern age. Told using expressive artwork that invokes both laughter and tears, this moving and highly entertaining single volume depicts not only the artist's burgeoning sexuality, but many other personal aspects of her life that will resonate with readers.
As someone half-Japanese who grew up in Austria, I've spent the last few years making sense of my relationship to my mother’s homeland. My mother spoke Japanese to us children from an early age, and we spent many childhood summers with our grandparents in Okayama. Because of this, my mother's home feels intimate and familiar to me. But it is also distant and foreign, and it is precisely this unknown, the seemingly exotic and mysterious, that I hope to approach through reading. For me, Japan is a kind of poetic space I set my characters in. In my last three books Japan was both the setting and the secret protagonist.
Now, I am no friend to graphic novels. As a novelist I prefer a story told in long strokes. For Taniguchi Jiro, however, I make an exception.
When I stumbled across A Journal of My Father, I was initially skeptical. Page after page, however, with an almost cinematic panorama laid out before me, I found myself in complete awe of the fine power of observation that Taniguchi brings to the small things in life. The simple and still finds artistic expression in his work, the every day suddenly seems notable, and anyone who – like me – often finds themselves reaching for a handkerchief, consider yourself warned: this touches you, though without a show of sentimentality.
After the death of his father, a man travels to his hometown and, through various conversations and encounters, pursues memories that have stayed with him since childhood. That doesn’t sound all that exciting. But…
KNOW THY FATHER The book opens with some childhood thoughts of Yoichi Yamashita spurred by a phone call at work informing him of his father’s death. So, he journeys back to his hometown after an absence of well over a decade during which time he has not seen his father. But as the relatives gather for the funeral and the stories start to flow, Yoichi’s childhood starts to resurface. The Spring afternoons playing on the floor of his father’s barber shop, the fire that ravaged the city and his family home, his parents’ divorce and a new ‘mother’. Through confidences…
I've always been a gamer, even now that passion burns bright. My favourite genres being FPS, Horror, Fighting, and adventure games. There's nothing like delving into a new game and feeling the adrenaline that comes with slaying beasts and leveling up, or getting emotional during a cinematic movie-like horror game. I've been gaming since I was a child all the way up until today. Gaming has always had my heart, which has led to me writing books inspired by gaming as well as being a gaming content creator, posting reviews on my website and social media. I love the fast-paced feeling you get whilst gaming and wanted to echo that in my storytelling.
A Ghibli classic, one of my favourites, and getting to experience the magical and slightly eerily interesting new world that Chihiro discovers, it's a race against time to save her parents.
However, when Chihiro's name is taken and she is forced to stay in said strange world, only the help of a mysterious boy named Haku and a bunch of other magical characters can Chihiro maybe return home. Love love love this book and the film, so I highly recommend it.
Ten-year-old Chihiro and her family are on their way to their new home. Dad takes a wrong turn, though, and they become lost in a forest. Eventually they find their way to a strange abandoned amusement park. Chihiro wanders off. As night falls, Chihiro finds out she's in a world of ghosts, demons, and strange gods. A mysterious boy, Haku, tells her that to survive Chihiro must find work. She must go down to the boiler room and seek out an old man named Kamaji...
I’ve always loved cartoons and anime. I’m also bisexual and non-binary. Growing up, gay representation was hard to come by, so when we did get it, we were always super excited, whether it was good or not so good. Luckily, I’ve gotten to watch the world change and grow more accepting, but sometimes it’s still difficult to find good rep when you don’t know where to look. I try to fill my books with good representation so that my readers can feel seen in a way I didn’t, and I want to spread the word about some great LGBT manga that I love and made an impact on me.
I’m always a sucker for something sweet, wholesome, and low-to-no stakes when it comes to my gay manga.
It’s a sweet and wholesome story about a mom who realizes her eldest son is gay, but gives him the space, respect, and privacy to come out in his own time. She also makes a point to defend her son’s sexuality without outing him to others. It made me crack up because I remember being that eldest son - thinking I was slick at hiding my sexuality, when I really wasn’t.
I also love how the mom gives her son the space he needs and respects his privacy. A super mom, for sure!
A doting mother and her two beloved sons, one of whom she thinks is probably gay, go about their daily lives in this hilarious and heartwarming LGBTQIA+-friendly family comedy!
Despite belonging to a family of four, the Aoyama residence is typically home to three, with Dad away for work. Mom Tomoko and her two darling sons, Hiroki and Yuri, go about their everyday lives with little to disturb their gentle routines.
But as Hiroki begins his first year of high school, Tomoko can’t help but wonder if her eldest has fallen for another boy. Though Tomoko is content to cheer…
From the age of 11, and an encounter with an illustrated anthology entitled The World of Zen, I have been drawn to and fascinated by the spiritual, philosophical, and folkloric aspects of East Asian Culture. I studied the subject at Cambridge University and subsequently trained in Zen Shiatsu therapy. Most of my books draw from my passion for East Asian culture, and Japan in particular. I have travelled widely in Japan over the last two decades, and for Tsunami Girl spent four years researching, interviewing survivors, and visiting Fukushima. I am now working on a new book on Japanese yōkai and ghosts…
Shigeru Mizuki is the late, great god of alternative manga (or gekiga). Suffused with personal experience and reflections, his work by turns playfully and powerfully explores pre-war childhood, near-death war-time experiences, politics, and – most importantly – the world of Japanese yōkai monsters. Nononba tells the story of his childhood education by his grandmother into the world of supernatural Japan, leading the way to his great yōkai series GeGeGe Kitaro. A memoir of love and loss, childhood innocence and imagination, Nononba was, in turn, a great education for me. Funny, strange, tender, and wise. And in places it freaks you out too!
The first English translation of Mizuki's best-loved work
NonNonBa is the definitive work by acclaimed Gekiga-ka Shigeru Mizuki, a poetic memoir detailing his interest in yokai (spirit monsters). Mizuki's childhood experiences with yokai influenced the course of his life and oeuvre; he is now known as the forefather of yokai manga. His spring 2011 book, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, was featured on PRI's The World, where Marco Werman scored a coveted interview with one of the most famous visual artists working in Japan today.
Within the pages of NonNonBa, Mizuki explores the legacy left him by his childhood explorations…
When my kids were toddlers, there was a Burger King in the neighborhood with an indoor playground. It was glorious. A random guy walked up to me while we were there. “How do you do it, you know, the whole Dad thing” he asked. "Well… you don’t necessarily need to do a whole lot. Mostly just show up. Stick around." Never mentioned that by this time, I’d written and/or illustrated at least a couple dozen children’s books. I asked my nine-year-old daughter how she’d describe me as a Dad. “Most people think you’re creative, but I think you’re pretty average.” That’s good enough for me.
Despite the drawing style, this really isn’t a kid's book.
Another Dad friend of mine, also into comics, mentioned he was reading it to his daughter. She was into it. I’d had the series from my pre-parent days. The conversation inspired me to give it a try with my then 5-year-old son, a Thomas the Tank engine superfan. He was hooked instantly.
The entire series is about 2,800 pages, so it covered a lot of bedtime stories. An intricate, sprawling story, loosely based on the life of the Buddha. It hit me even harder on my second reading while occasionally fielding some pretty heavy questions from my son.
This is a masterpiece of historical fiction, philosophy, casual nudity, and general Japanese weirdness. Way better than anything ever read to me as a kid. Easily one of the best things I’ve read as an adult. And this is coming from a…
Osamu Tezuka's vaunted storytelling genius, consummate skill at visual expression, and warm humanity blossom fully in his eight-volume epic of Siddhartha's life and times. Tezuka evidences his profound grasp of the subject by contextualizing the Buddha's ideas; the emphasis is on movement, action, emotion, and conflict as the prince Siddhartha runs away from home, travels across India, and questions Hindu practices such as ascetic self-mutilation and caste oppression. Rather than recommend resignation and impassivity, Tezuka's Buddha predicates enlightenment upon recognizing the interconnectedness of life, having compassion for the suffering, and ordering one's life sensibly. Philosophical segments are threaded into interpersonal…
I’m a cartoonist who often features cat characters in my books, including Cool Japan Guide, Cool Tokyo Guide, Dolltopia, and Kitty Sweet Tooth. As a life-long cat-lover, I enjoy drawing and writing about my beloved feline friends. I’m also an avid reader of manga and frequent visitor to Japan, where I studied in my college days, so I particularly love reading manga featuring cats and collecting Maneki Neko lucky cat figures as well. I hope you enjoy these books and consider adopting a cat!
As cute as it gets! This story of a kitten and her adoption into a family and interactions with children and other animals will make any cat-lover smile. Chi is always getting into trouble, as kittens do, and her adventures are sure to lighten the mood of any reader.
Chi is a mischievous newborn kitten who, while on a leisurely stroll with her family, finds herself lost. Separated from the warmth and protection of her mother, feels distraught. Overcome with loneliness she breaks into tears in a large urban park meadow, when she is suddenly rescued by a young boy named Yohei and his mother. The kitty is then quickly and quietly whisked away into the warm and inviting Yamada family apartment...where pets are strictly not permitted.
The Complete Chi's Sweet Home collects Chi's Sweet Home vol 1-3 and includes never before translated comics from Konami Kanata in a…
I’m only a writer because I was a musician first. I worshiped music—as a performer, listener, and later a critic—for its ability to enshrine me in a purely emotional world. My favorite lyrics were poetry in motion; my favorite melodies escaped description. And through sharing my feverish acclamations of particular albums and songs, I found community with others who also pledged themselves to art that’d definitively split their lives into “before” and “after.” My writing career was born from cathartic devotion and remains devoted to recounting the rapture of self-formation, of being reflected in the mirror of something that saw you before you even knew to see yourself.
This Japanese manga series about a disillusioned high schooler who finds purpose through painting speaks so pointedly to my reality as a creative professional that sometimes, after reading a chapter, I will lie down on the ground, struck through by dread, electric possibility, or some combination thereof.
Beyond the fact that I’d be remiss if I didn’t somehow represent anime and manga, which have played outsized roles in my creative formation, this book is refreshingly blunt about the realities of making a living from art. But it’s also so generous with its characters, who represent every stripe of a budding artist with startling specificity. Including its protagonist, Yatora, who upends his life because of a single painting. Who can’t relate?
Winner of the 2020 Manga Taisho Grand Prize! A manga about the struggles and rewards of a life dedicated to art. The studious Yatora leaves a dry life of study and good manners behind for a new passion: painting. But untethering yourself from all your past expectations is dangerous as well as thrilling... Yatora is the perfect high school student, with good grades and lots of friends. It's an effortless performance, and, ultimately...a dull one. But he wanders into the art room one day, and a lone painting captures his eye, awakening him to a kind of beauty he never…
As a young man who deals with issues of loneliness, depression, and melancholy, I’ve always been drawn to platonic male friendships in fiction. Seeing acts of brotherly courage and heroism on the page has always resonated with me, especially when my own friendships in the real world have felt lacking. Men aren’t the best at discussing their emotions, especially not with each other, and I’ve desperately sought out stories where even the most grizzled male heroes are, deep down, in need of a friend. In writing Stormblood, I wanted to have a strong sense of brotherhood and unity between the male cast members as they battle enemies and face their personal demons.
I know what you’re thinking: why is manga series about an anthropomorphic wolf in a school of animals on this list? But bear with me. (No pun intended).
Beastars is a manga series about animals that has a lot to say about humans. Themes include othering, prejudice, nature vs. nurture, et cetera. But there’s also a lot of brotherhood. One of the main characters is a wolf with anxiety, and the other is a red deer with a domineering, arrogant attitude. And yet, they become unlikely allies and brothers as they navigate their own animalistic instincts in a world full of lies, half-truths, and social pressures.
I found them to be very flawed, very human (animal?) characters. Their unflinching resolve and determination to bring out the best in each other until the very end make this slice-of-life animal drama so compelling.
At this high school, instead of jocks and nerds, the students are divided into predators and prey.
At a high school where the students are literally divided into predators and prey, it's personal relationships that maintain the fragile peace. Who among them is a Beastar-an academic and social role model destined to become a leader in a society naturally rife with mistrust?
Last night at Cherryton Academy, an herbivore student was killed and eaten. Among the members of the drama club, the herbivores' suspicions naturally turn to their carnivore classmates... The prime suspect? Legosi, a large wolf. But he wouldn't…
