The Quest For The Missing Girl

by Jiro Taniguchi

Overview

Mountaineer Shiga made a promise to his best friend following his tragic death in the Himalayas - now 12 years later he is called upon to honor that promise. When 15-year-old student Megumi fails to arrive home from school her mother calls on her dead husband's best friend for help. Shiga abandons his mountain refuge and enters the city to look for the girl - and with the police investigation at a standstill, Shiga has to go it alone.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9788496427471
Publisher:	Bantam Books
Publication date:	01/02/2009
Pages:	333
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Jiro Taniguchi was born 1947 in Tottori, Japan. He trained in the 60's and debuted in 1971 in 'Young Comic'. During the 70's he worked with author Natsuo Sekikawa before launching into their massive work 'The times of Botchan' in the 80's. The 90's saw many solo works including the prize winning 'A Distant Neighborhood'. The new millenium saw Taniguchi's epic adaptation of Baku Yumemakura's novel 'The Summit of the Gods' into a 1500 page manga. He continues to live and work in Japan.

Editorial Reviews

Given that Taniguchi is the creator of and artist for many accomplished works of nouvelle manga such as The Walking Man and Ice Wanderer, this mystery manga falls short. The rather uninventive story line finds mountaineer Shiga traveling to Tokyo to find his friend's 15-year-old daughter, who has gone missing. Taniguchi, whose usual work reflects a fascination and great respect for nature and the overwhelming feelings that it can conjure, feels out of step with this book. The project excels in the mountain scenes and flashbacks, but flattens out in the flashy lights of Tokyo. Like Shiga, Taniguchi seems to feel out of place with the big city, outside of and uncomfortable with its rhythms. Very much a product of its time (Quest was first published in Japan in 1999), Taniguchi treats "compensated dating" (a practice of older men giving younger women gifts in exchange for companionship or sex, common in Japan in the 1990s) with a heavy hand. He also implements larger-than-life scenarios that, while staples in manga, feel clumsy in his hand. Taniguchi's art is ever beautiful, but like the storytelling here, it simply doesn't grip the reader the way his other works do. (Dec.)

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