Yoshiharu Tsuge Books

"Yoshiharu Tsuge leaves early genre trappings behind, taking a light, humorous approach in these stories based on his own travels. Red Flowers ranges from deep character studies to personal reflections to ensemble comedies set in the hotels and bathhouses of rural Japan. There are irascible old men, drunken gangsters, reflective psychiatric-hospital escapees, and mysterious dogs. Tsuge's stories are mischievous and tender even as they explore complex relationships and heartache. It's a world of extreme poverty, tradition, secret fishing holes, and top-dollar koi farming...Red Flowers affirms why Tsuge went on to become one of the most important cartoonists in Japan. These vital comics inspired a wealth of fictionalized memoir from his peers and a desire within the postwar generation to document and understand the diversity of their country's culture."-- Provided by publisher

A Japanese manga legend's autobiographical graphic novel about a struggling artist and the first full-length work by the great Yoshiharu Tsuge available in the English language. Yoshiharu Tsuge is one of comics' most celebrated and influential artists, but his work has been almost entirely unavailable to English-speaking audiences. The Man Without Talent, his first book ever to be translated into English, is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs -- used camera salesman, ferryman, and stone collector -- hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. Accompanied by an essay from translator Ryan Holmberg that discusses Tsuge's importance in comics and Japanese literature, The Man Without Talent is one of the great works of comics literature.

„Mein Ziel”, so Yoshiharu Tsuge in einem Interview, „war es, mich, wann immer sich mir die Gelegenheit bot, vom traditionellen Geschichtenerzählen zu distanzieren. Man könnte sagen, dass ich an dem, was wir ,Handlung’ nennen, nicht interessiert war.” Die Geschichten, die in Yoshios Jugend versammelt sind, bewegen sich zwischen Traum und Realität, zwischen Alltag und Wahnsinn. Yoshiharu Tsuge blickt zurück auf die Härten der Nachkriegszeit, die Unschuld seiner Anfänge als Mangaka und auf die Ernüchterung, die folgte. Wie Rote Blüten und Der Nutzlose Mann sind die Erzählungen des jungen Yoshio Watakushi-Manga, „Ich-Manga“ voller Introspektion, in denen sich die luzide und entzauberte Beschreibung der Wirklichkeit mit Momenten reiner Lyrik abwechselt, und groteske Porträts sich mit zarten Einbrüchen in die Komödie mischen. Yoshiharu Tsuge blickt zurück auf seine Vergangenheit und schöpft aus Erlebnissen aus seiner Kindheit und als Erwachsener, während sein Stil sich immer wieder neu erfindet. Mit einem Vorwort von Toshiaki Kobayashi und einem Nachwort von Mitsuhiro Asakawa.