Red Flowers

by Yoshiharu Tsuge, Ryan Holmberg (Translator), Mitsuhiro Asakawa (Editor)

Overview

The influential cartoonist hits his stride as he celebrates the charms and oddities of rural postwar culture

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.

The title story highlights the nuance and empathy that made Tsuge’s work stand out from that of his peers. A nameless traveler comes across a young girl running an inn. While showing the traveler where the best fishing hole is, a bratty schoolmate reveals the girl must run the business because her alcoholic father is incapable. At the story’s end, the traveler witnesses an unusual act of kindness from the boy as the girl suffers her first menstrual cramps — and a simple travelogue takes on unexpected depth.

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770464346
Publisher:	Drawn & Quarterly
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Series:	Yoshiharu Tsuge , #2
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	16 Years

About the Author

Yoshiharu Tsuge was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1937. Influenced by the realistic and gritty manga of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, he began making his own comics and was briefly recruited to assist Shigeru Mizuki in the 1960s. In 1968, while working for Garo magazine, Tsuge published the groundbreaking story “Neji-shiki” (commonly called “Screw Style” by Western readers), which established him as an influential manga-ka and a cultural touchstone in the changing Japanese art world. He is considered the originator and greatest practitioner of the I-novel method of comics-making. In 2005, Tsuge was nominated for the Best Album Award at Angoulême International and in 2017 won the Japan Cartoonists Association Grand Award for Yume to tabi no sekai.

Editorial Reviews

08/02/2021

This quirky collection of alternative manga from Tsuge (The Swamp), a founder of the avant-garde manga movement in the 1960s, shows off his cartooning chops through humorous and autobiographical tales. From the thought process of a salamander in a drainpipe to travelogues chronicling Tsuge’s stays at the shabbiest inns in rural Japan, these shorts delve into a range of subjects, characters, themes, and emotions. Tsuge experiments with highly rendered backgrounds and cartoony characters (he draws himself rather like a muppet), taking inspiration from his colleague Shigeru Mizuki’s trademark style. “Red Flowers” depicts a girl experiencing menstrual cramps with nuance and empathy, while in “The Ondol Shack,” Tsuge jokes about rowdy teens disrupting his stay at a Korean-style hot spring in Hachimantai. Throughout, he plays with story structure, ending many tales on ambiguous images. This became a trademark for the artist; “The Lee Family” in particular cuts off so abruptly that fellow manga creators “spontaneously drew their own parodic sequels,” as Mitsuhiro Asakawa and Ryan Holmberg describe in a scholarly afterword. Part of a Tsuge retrospective series, the volume will be a must-read for collectors. And despite the creator’s weighty reputation, this proves accessible and fun for manga newcomers as well. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Quirky... a must-read for collectors [that] proves accessible and fun for manga newcomers as well.” —Publishers Weekly

“A dozen compelling, mostly peripatetic, stories by the inventor of literary manga.” —Shelf Awareness, Starred Review

“It’s easy to declare that this series, and Tsuge’s work, is fantastic.” —Manga Bookshelf

“Fascinating… one of Japan’s most celebrated and reclusive artists.” —The Guardian

“A revered creator of gegika manga [who works] in a style both spare and lush.” —New York Times Book Review

“Reading Red Flowers gives a feeling of following Tsuge on his travels, an early example that comics can evoke as much as any form of literature.” —BlogCritics

“[Red Flowers is] a strong contender for the best book you could read this year, and it doesn’t really matter which year you happen to pick it up.” —SOLRAD

“These stories are interesting and unusual, and it’s great to see them given the opportunity for a new audience, and a chance for manga fans to learn more about the history of manga and what has paved the way for what we have today.” —Otaku USA

“Those with an interest in early literary manga, or an academic interest in manga as a literary form, will want to pick this up.” —Anime News Network

“I highly recommend this volume and I eagerly await the next.” —Newcity

From the Publisher