Depth of Japanese Manga - Travelogue Comics

This is a part of my unauthorized translation for ISHIZAWA Takeshi's essays from his column titled Depth of Japanese Manga. Please do not consider this piece as my own.

Pea

After last week's Preface, Ishizawa-san wrote this short piece on the same day. All hail Julie and Ed for their proofreading skills!

Generally speaking, Japanese like to travel. Naturally, mangaka who do so will often record their trips in the form of manga.

This panel is by NAKANO Kenji from Indo nite (In India). This work tells of NAKANO's adventure on his^[1] trip to India. As a tourist from abroad he travels to all sorts of tourist destinations, hopping onto night buses, being cheated, watching the rituals for the dead, and lots of other things. His drawing style is unique, they capture both stillness and humour in tranquility.

NAGAMI Rinko, is a female author who has been traveling to India every year for 15 years. She retells her life as a backpacker living in cheap lodgings. She married an Indian, the lodging keeper where she stays every time she visits India. Their interracial marriage and life in Japan are also drawn in the form of manga, very interesting.

TAKAHASHI Yukari also a female mangaka who married a foreigner. Her husband is from Turkey, so she converted to Islam. She might be the only Moslem mangaka around.^[2] In her work, Toruko de watashi mo kangaeta (I think in Turkish, too!) she introduces Turkish daily lifestyle and food. It looks so delicious. When I was reading the manga, I would have liked to go to Turkey to eat Turkey food!

ODA Sora is a female mangaka who speaks Chinese fluently. She often travels to China. Since she was highly interested, she registered at a language academy in Beijing to learn Chinese. After she mastered the language, she started to teach Japanese somewhere in China. To me, ODA's work, Chuugoku ikaga desu ka? (Do you like China?) is so interesting. She explained the differences between using Kanji in China and Japan and the special attributes of Japanese based on her experience as a Japanese teacher. She also draws daily Chinese food that looks so delicious.

I am intrigued, even though hundreds of thousands of Japanese visit Indonesia every year, especially Bali, why there haven't been any manga telling their travels to Indonesia? There are many interracial marriages between Japanese and Indonesian, so I wonder why nobody put them into manga?

I also like stories about traveling to a fantasy land. This work by SAKABASHIRA Imiri drives us to a nightmare world of fantasy. The world that he^[3] has drawn is a mixture of various things: 1950s in Japan; Taiwan markets; the city of Hong Kong; classic horror movies; chemical factories; Hawaiian god statues. In that creepy world, strange creatures wander around, like a one eyed cat, a kappa, a frog, and a one-eyed bunny.

This is manga magazine named Ax, front cover illustrated by SAKABASHIRA (from Seirinkogeisha website). Ax magazine was founded by former staffs of Garo. They do not work there anymore.

(18-10-2003)

Translation Notes

Pheew, less text to translate, and more pictures to look at. Yay! As always, any errors and/or grammar mistakes, send them to: reapea@gmail.com. Opinions and such, post them here.

[1] Indonesian words for his/him/her and he/she are genderless, so I am not sure if this mangaka is a he or a she, I assume it's a he, from the name and self-drawing on the panel.
[2] ISHIZAWA Takeshi, the original writer of this essay is interested in religions. When he was studying in Indonesia, he took an interest in Islam, and he even wrote an article titled Feminism in Islam in Japanese.
[3] Same as [1]

Next Week: TOYO Kataoka and MIURA Yasuto