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Lonely People -- Welcome to the NHK, Suppli, and Garden Dreams Reviewed
posted February 13, 2008
 

Lonely People
By David P. Welsh

It's been a good couple of years for the socially inept manga character. First there was Del Rey's release of Kio Shimoku's quirky, charming Genshiken, about a college club full of otaku. Then there was the multi-front invasion of some dweeb who protected a girl from a grabby drunk on a train, spawning novel, three manga adaptations, and a movie. Charming as all of these are, there was an undercurrent of opinion that they all tended to whitewash the misfit experience. If you really wanted to walk in the shoes of a loser, the argument went, your clear choice was Welcome to the N.H.K. (Tokyopop).

Tatsuhiko Takimoto's novel and the manga adaptation by Kendi Oiwa tell the tale of Satou, who has taken antisocial behavior to a level just shy of the Unabomber. The college drop-out hasn't left his dingy apartment in months except for late-night trips to the convenience store to retrieve what passes for sustenance. He's a "hikikomori," part of a distressing trend where young people isolate themselves from society, though he'd deny it if you applied the term to him.

It's just such a denial that forces him out of his hygienically suspect cocoon. In the course of their missionary work, young Misaki and her aunt pay a visit to Satou's den, and he handles it with the level of savoir faire you'd expect. His utter terror at the invasion both confirms his hikikomori status and sparks a burning desire to overcome it (short of actually admitting to it). Misaki is intrigued by his state and invites Satou to participate in an experiment in social engineering; she'll reintroduce him to society if he only follows her instructions to the letter.


What follows are Satou's feeble attempts to escape the hikikomori lifestyle, with perilous detours into the world of lolicon game development, homemade hallucinogens, and organized religion. It sounds scabrous and ostentatiously transgressive, and it kind of teeters on the verge, but the novel, smartly adapted and translated by Laura Wyrick and Lindsey Akashi, is really very sweet. (I'm sorry, but it is.) If Takimoto isn't particularly generous to his characters, he's ultimately very forgiving. Instead of churning out a sensational expose of a societal ill, it's closer in spirit to the short stories of David Sedaris -- wildly satirical, sharply rendered, and with just enough hope to make the whole thing rewarding.

(I'm less impressed with the manga, which is faithful to the events of the novel but misses its spirit by a good distance. I found it shrill and too reliant on easy laughs in comparison to the subtle, slightly surreal prose version.)

The protagonist of Mari Okazaki's Suppli (Tokyopop) is dealing with the end of her own kind of self-imposed isolation. Advertising executive Minami's seven-year relationship has come to a not entirely unexpected or unwelcome end, and she's decided to throw herself into work to fill the void. It's not a professional rededication, as she's always worked hard; it's more of a decision to engage her co-workers on a personal level.

Minami is winningly clumsy as she tries to befriend people she's worked with for years. She's seeing things though new eyes, essentially reevaluating dynamics she'd previously taken for granted. Without the security of a relationship or the firm compartmentalization of her professional and personal lives, everything is heightened and slightly strange.

There's a fairly pedestrian love triangle. Everyone since Richard Brinsley Sheridan (and well before him) has been presenting young women with the choice between rough edges and apparent respectability, and neither of Minami's potential suitors bring much that's new to the equation. I strongly suspect that who-will-she-choose waffling wasn't Okazaki's central point, though.

The main attraction is watching Minami function in a demanding workplace. There are successes and failures, moments where she saves the day through tenacity and skill, and points where her creative, carefully conceived ideas are shot down. The inspiration-to-perspiration ratio of Minami's advertising job is just right, and it's nice to see a career rendered with so much care and detail.

Given the choice between one of Fumi Yoshinaga's contemporary stories and one of her period pieces, I'd take the near-present almost any time. Her potent wit and emotional specificity seem to be muted when she busts out the frock coats. But as many wiser commentators have noted, even lesser Yoshinaga is well worth a read.

That's pretty much my assessment of Garden Dreams (DMP), a mildly moody trifle of interconnected stories about love and loss among the Crusaders. It doesn't come anywhere near the heights of Antique Bakery, Flower of Life, or Ichigenme: The First Class Is Civil Law, but there are substantial pleasures to be found all the same.

The setting is the baronial estate of a gloomy widower. His staff expands with the arrival of a pair of Middle Eastern bards who have left their unspecified homeland behind in the wake of terrible personal losses. Their music cheers the baron and intrigues his adopted daughter, another Middle Eastern refugee. Some singularly ridiculous coincidences lead to the revelation of dark secrets, new beginnings, and a whole lot of asexual healing.

Though the architecture of the book is pretty much hogwash, Yoshinaga's creative way with emotional interplay is very much in evidence. The baron's marital history is a moving piece of romantic tragedy. The creator's perverse sense of humor is on display as well, puncturing her own somber atmosphere in delightfully unexpected ways. It's no masterpiece, even by the standards of Yoshinaga's period pieces, but it's a pleasant diversion between volumes of Flower of Life.

this article originally appeared at Comic World News