Disappearance Diary Hideo Azumi (Manga Mature)

Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azumi (Manga Mature)

This is a black and white Japanese manga translated into english. It is a three part "slice of life" story. The content is mature, but not salacious.

The author, Hideo Azuma went through three dark periods in his life. The drawings are very unrealistic because they give an upbeat mood to some very dark situations. This creates a deep contrast between the actual content and the situations being described.

In the first set of stories the author loses his ability to draw and wanders off into the woods becoming homeless. It describes him scrounging for blankets, searching for food in garbage cans, and setting up shelters with plastic sheets and avoiding people.

The drawings are free hand and very detailed, but not photorealistic. Scenes show him scrounging for money in vending machines, going through bottles for wine and saki, hanging out at the library and sitting around in the park. Some of the scenes in the library are quite interesting. Eventually, he gets picked up by the police and returned home. He has been listed as a missing person.

The second part is him wandering off from home again and eventually becoming a laborer and then advancing to becoming a pipefitter. He meets a variety of obnoxious hard drinking and womanizing working class men. Many of the characters in this manga are eccentric or very unpleasant. The characters create a lot of conflict which makes the stories gripping. It is clear at this point Hideo Azuma is an alcoholic. Parts of the manga story remind of the classic novel On The Road by Jack Kerouac.

There are moments where he describes his career as a manga artist. He becomes very successful. So successful, that he has too much work and does not know how to say no. This drives him to drink more. His editors pay his tab at the bar. This segways into the third and final part of the story, where he is in the hospital as an alchoholic. The story is very exacting; it describes his alcholic anonymous meetings, medication, and his hospital stay.

This is an excellent and interesting manga. It won the grand prize at the 9th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2005. The book was translated into english in 2008.

Daily Thougts 5/2/2099

Poster by John Cecily Clay 1905

Daily Thoughts 5/2/2009

I walked up to my local library. It is very nice outside. It was refreshing. I picked up a manga by Hideo Azuma called Disappearance Diary. It is about a manga artist who has a habit of wandering off from his family, becoming alcoholic, becoming homeless, and acting a bit wild. The manga won the Grand Prize at the 9th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2005. It reminds me a bit of On the Road in a way and other accounts of wandering artists. I finished reading it tonight and will write a review tomorrow.

I also finished reading Good To Great by Jim Collins. This is a very interesting book. It will take me a while to think through what it says. There are a lot of implications about what it is saying that are quite relevant to what I am doing. I also finished reading the companion monograph, Good to Great and the Social Sectors

Steven Barnes has a mass market paperback of Great Sky Woman out. The book is about a prehistoric tribe in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro. He is an African American writer of science fiction. He incorporates many historical motifs in his novels. Steven Barnes was nominated for the Hugo award for Novelette, The Locusts which he cowrote with Larry Niven. The sequel, Shadow Valley is coming out on May 5, 2009.

I finished watching Sidewalk Stories on dvd by Charles Lane. Charles Lane lent it to me to watch. I found it rather interesting. He acted, produced, and directed in this film. It is a silent black and white film set in New York city. The musical score is what makes the film exceptional. It takes the place of the dialogue. He also lent me another film, True Identity which is a comedy. He both acts in and produces this film.

Web Bits

Thomas Nelson has a book review program for bloggers. They give a free book to people who review their books. http://brb.thomasnelson.com/