Eight stories from nine European creators about different geographic locations around Japan are combined with eight stories from eight creators from the Archipelago about their birthplace or place of residence. The result is a sentient collection of anecdotes and tales, both ancient and modern, woven together from such differing views that one is sorely tempted to visit for oneself some aspect of this land of the Rising Sun.
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Creators participating in alphabetic order [b]from Europe[/b]: Aurélia Aurita, Étienne Davodeau, Nicolas De Crécy, Emmanuel Guibert, Fabrice Neaud, Beno"t Peeters, David Prudhomme, François Schuiten, Joann Sfar; [b]from Japan[/b] Moyoko Anno, Frédéric Boilet, Kazuichi Hanawa, Daisuke Igarashi, Little Fish, Taiyo Matsumoto, Kan Takahama, Jiro Taniguchi.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Japan-French collaboration,
This review is from: JAPAN AS VIEWED BY 17 CREATORS (Paperback)
A good introduction to two different graphic novel markets and an effort toward connecting the two. I'd recommend anything by the publisher, Ponent and all work by Taiyo Matsumoto.
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of the strongest comic anthologies in recent years,
By
This review is from: JAPAN AS VIEWED BY 17 CREATORS (Paperback)
Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators is a high-concept book, and one that works. Nine French comics creators were invited to visit Japan, where they would write and draw short stories about (or inspired by) the cities or towns they visited. They would be joined by eight creators living in Japan (seven Japanese natives, plus editor and French expat Frédéric Boilet), who would craft tales focused on where they lived. The work was sponsored by two French and Japanese arts organizations and the book was pre-sold for editions in seven languages before a single pen stroke was put to paper. The result is one of the strongest comics anthologies in recent years.
The book's 16 stories (only one is a collaboration) are presented in geographical order, starting at Japan's southernmost tip. They then go northward, area by area, stopping at Tokyo for about a third of the collection, before trekking further northward. We start on the westernmost coast of Japan, in the village of Amakua, with a story by Japan's Kan Takahama. It's a delightful entry to the book, a combination travelogue, ghost story and love story, told in detailed gray tones with a marvelous sense of place. It's not a plot-driven story, but it's a nice little anecdote which helps set the tone for the stories to come. Next up is David Prudhomme, who visited Fukuoka, the traditional gateway to Japan for Western visitors. Prudhomme lets his shoes come alive and show us the town and its citizens, wildlife, art and coastal waters. Weirdly enjoyable. Jiro Taniguchi gives us a story of unrequited love, told in detailed, precise, classic manga-style artwork. It's one of the saddest stories in the book, and one of the most beautiful. From Taniguchi's precision we go to Aurélia Aurita, who works in an incredibly sketchy style, a combination of pencil and ink that leaves some panels barely sketched. She brings both a sense of humor and a charged eroticism to the book that sets this story apart. François Schuiten and Benoit Peeters turn in a story about Osaka that is more fantasy than reality. A combination of text, pictures and a small amount of sequential art, this is the most fanciful story in the the book, as well as one of its most visually striking. Emmanuel Guilbert also sticks with a text-and-pictures format for the next story, inspired by the legends and history of Kyoto. Each page is a slightly different style, mostly told with broad brush strokes. It's not comics, but it's worth reading. Nicolas De Crécy s another artist with a sketchy style, this one loose renderings in a fine-tipped pen. It's one of the most straight-forward tales in the book, looking at the "New Gods" that Western marketing have brought to Nagoya. The next tale is by Taiyo Matsumoto, who presents to us a legend straight out of Kanagawa. All told in full-page pictures, it's a wonderful story full of magic and more than a little sadness. The next several tales are all set in Tokyo. Joann Sfar lets his French friend Waterloo give him a tour of the city and its culture as seen through his Western lens. The Japanese artist known as Little Fish presents a surreal story of a man with a sunflower growing out of his navel. Moyoko Anno gives us a very short piece about a young girl in ancient Japan buying a pet cricket. And editor Boilet give us an erotic story about garbage and how confusing it is getting rid of your trash in Tokyo. The next tale, Fabrice Neaud's "The City of Trees," is a wonderfully drawn travelogue of the city of Sendai. Tragically, most of what Neaud depicts may no longer be there, since this so much of this marvelous city was destroyed by this year's earthquake and tsunami. Read this story and weep for what has been lost. From the realistic to the magical, "The Festival of the Bell-Horses" by Daisuke Igarashi is one of the more rural stories in this book, presented through the eyes of a child as he falls asleep and dreams during a parade. "In the Deep Forest" by Kazuichi Hanawa is one of the hardest stories in the book to describe. I guess you'd say it's a Buddhist look at nature, with a little bit of horror and dread thrown in for good measure. Finally we come to the Northernmost and final story in the book, "Sapporo Fiction" by Étienne Davodeau. It's another more literal travel story, this time capturing the awe and majesty of Mt. Showa-Shinzan. In the process, it captures the awe that most of the book's creators felt about Japan, and serves as a nice way to finish off the volume. Even with the strengths of this book (there's not a bad story to be found), there are a few minor quibbles. Perhaps as a result of cross-continental translations, a few of the text blocks have missing characters (particularly apostrophes, which disappear frequently). In addition, a couple of the stories some digital remnants from bad scanning, and much of the lettering has faint gray echoes of each letter printed just out of synch with the black, which is a bit distracting. But those are all minor printing and production issues. The book itself is a great read, and a great addition to any library. -- John R. Platt
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nine French. Eight Japanese. Sixteen Stories,
This review is from: JAPAN AS VIEWED BY 17 CREATORS (Paperback)
You would expect and odd little mixed bag from a project like this, and an odd little mixed bag is exactly what you get. Conceived as a cultural exchange project by the French Institute and Alliance in Japan, eight French comic artists were invited to visit various parts of Japan with the only requirement being that they created a black-and-white comic regarding something of the area. These comics were combined with eight comics done by native Japanese artists, and there you have "Japan: As Viewed by Seventeen Creators." (Yes, the numbers do not add up. One of the comics was done by a writer/artist team giving you seventeen creators for sixteen comics.)
One thing you cannot expect is travelogues. Only a few of the invited French artists framed their comics as travel pieces. Most of them were inspired to create some story of the local, some personal reflection more on themselves than Japan, or something entirely unexpected. The two travelers to Osaka, Francois Shuiten and Benoit Peeters, envisioned a Sci-Fi tinged future of an elegant sky garden with floating restaurants and a nine-hole golf course, and a city mascot of a newly discovered insect that converts pollution to clean air. Nicolas De Crecy came up with a story of an advertising executive bringing an unformed mascot to Nagoya where the mascot could mix with the local Japanese product characters and maybe gain some inspiration. Emmanuel Guibert has a prose-and-pictures piece on a friend names Shin. Ichi who loved the West in a way many Westerners love the East. A few were more straight forward. Three of the stories mention the public hot springs and bathing culture of Japan, comparing the different body cultures of France and Japan. Aurelia Aurita, a half-Chinese, half-Cambodian French woman, is delighted to be mistaken for Japanese although her bottoms-only tan lines give her away as a free-spirited French woman used to the topless beaches of France. Fabrice Neaud gives a melancholy account of going to Japan with a bad case of heartbreak, and wondering why he cannot find gay culture in Japan. Joann Sfar is teamed up with an expat French man living long-term in Japan, but with a distain for the culture and a pride in never learning any Japanese. The Japanese creators generally turned in little pieces of nostalgia. Kan Takahama gives a sweet little love story set on the small isle of Amakusa that has almost been entire depopulated as people move to work in the cities. The ever-brilliant Jiro Taniguchi (The Quest for the Missing Girl) delivers an equally subtle and poignant love story of the village girl left behind. Moyoko Anno has a short period piece of a young girl looking to buy a singing cricket at the insect market. I certainly didn't love every piece of "Japan: As Viewed by Seventeen Creators." It would be almost impossible to get so many different artists without someone's style I don't connect with. Probably my least-favorite was Joann Sfar's. I knew too many of that type of person when I lived in Japan and always despised them. I don't want to read about them now. I wasn't a fan of Fabrice Neaud's introspective comic either. Too much hand-wringing and self-pity for me. Some of them surprised me, like Aurelia Aurita's and Nicolas De Crecy's. At first glance, they seemed somewhat typical, but when I actually started reading the stories they were charming. And De Crecy made me notice the oddness of naming cigarette brands Hope and Peace for the first time. I smoked both in Japan, and never thought about the irony of the names. Ponent Mon created a similar work Korea As Viewed By 12 Creators, as a celebration of the120th anniversary of Franco-Korean diplomatic relations.
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