2023-12-22 06:40:24
►An initiatory story with African roots
Red Flowertome 1
of Louis
Glénat, 240 p. 7,90 €
The jungle dominates Bao’re Island. A peaceful people inhabit it. In harmony with the wild nature that surrounds him, he cultivates non-violence, feeds only on plants and uses prudently the powers of a plant and its red flower. But this wisdom requires a long apprenticeship; young Kéli, the king’s second son, has the hard experience of it. A fighter, he learns to respect his opponent.
To create this original manga, Franco-Ghanaian author Loui draws on African traditions and legends while using Japanese graphic and narrative techniques. Fights, family and friendly ties, diving into nature… All the ingredients are there to capture the attention of the young adolescent questioning his future.
►A portrait of a sixty-year-old with surprise success
Ocean Rush
de John Tarachine
Translated from Japanese by Olivier Malosse
Akata, two volumes of 160 pages, €8.05 each
To regain a taste for life two months after the death of her husband, Umiko, 65, enrolled in film school and worked hard to convince those around her – as well as herself – of her talent. Throughout the story, the author of this manga who signed it under a pseudonym plays with the maritime metaphor and illustrates it with poetry. Fragile but determined, Umiko lets herself be carried away by her desire to become a filmmaker which, like a tidal wave, will eventually bring her to the surface and allow her to overcome her grief. A surprise success in Japan, this beautiful portrait of a sixty-year-old has won two awards in Japan.
►A 19th century courtesan facing her destiny
The Seasons of Ohgishima
de Kan Takahama
Japanese translation by Yohan Leclerc
Glénat, 2 volumes of 224 p., €10.95 each
In Nagasaki, in 1866, Tamao, 14, was condemned to be a courtesan in the pleasure district. She must follow her elders to a rich Dutchman’s house to work as a servant. She opens herself to destinies other than her own, including that of a well-born young boy or a Christian who hides his faith… On the eve of the Meiji Revolution, in the 19th century, the population, like Tamao, fears for his future. Through the grace of a drawing imbued with naivety and humor, between manga and Franco-Belgian comics, Kan Takahama makes us feel the emotions of these existences dispossessed of their destiny.
►Thirty-year-olds on the verge of a nervous breakdown
Tokyo Tarareba Girlsvolume 1, season 2.
d’Akiko Higashimura
Translation from Japanese: Miyako Slocombe.
Black lizard, 176 p., €12.
Surprised by the years that pass, three young women wake up at 30, free, on the rise professionally… but single. They multiply their attempts to find Prince Charming, confide their experiences to each other and drown their disappointments in alcohol… This lively comedy reflects the youth of Tokyo that mangaka Akiko Higashimura evokes at the start of this second season, which takes up the recipe and the ingredients of the first.
From the hundreds of testimonies she received from this young generation, moved by the first volumes of the series, she depicts women torn between the desire for autonomy and freedom and that of building a couple and a family. . A construction still synonymous today in Japan with the subjugation of women in a very corseted society. Even if the author describes a sad reality, she focuses above all on portraying funny and endearing heroines.
►A dive into the imagination of the 1980s
2001 Nights Stories
de Yukinobu Hoshino
Translated from Japanese by Djamel Rabahi
Glénat, Volume 1, 354 p. – Volume 2, 436 p. – €32 per volume
In 1984, Yukinobu Hoshino succeeded in his crazy bet: to deliver a manga which takes up and extends the universe of 2001 a space odyssey, Kubrick’s monumental film, with new scientific and existential questions. After a nuclear war, man colonizes space in search of a better world.
Over the course of 19 short stories, these two volumes make us follow the adventures of the Robinson family populating the planet Ozma, or those of a papal legate sent to discover a planet composed of antimatter… The drawing, influenced by the aesthetics of American cinema, gains in strength and poetry thanks to this reissue in an A4 format album, and takes us back to the overflowing imagination of the 1980s.
And also, among our fall favorites :
– Waltz with 3 sistersby Melome Machida (Casterman, 240 p., €15), a variation that is both moving and funny on the existential questions of three sisters who live together under the same roof.
– Blue Giant Explorer, by Shinichi Ishizuka (Glénat, 214 p., €7.90), road trip of a young Japanese saxophonist in search of perfection.
#Mangas #favorites #year