Just So Happens
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Yumiko was born in Japan but has made a life in London, losing herself in its cosmopolitan bustle. She has a gallery show of her art, a good job, and a good guy she plans to marry. The culture she grew up in seems very far away—until her brother phones with the news that their father has died. Yumiko returns to Tokyo and finds herself immersed in the rituals of death while also plunged into the rituals of life—fish bars, bullet trains, pagodas—as she confronts the question of where her future really lies. Just So Happens deals both gently and powerfully with grief, identity, and the pressure not to disappoint one’s parents, even after they’re gone, in a look at the relationships that build the foundation of our lives.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Accomplished British (and Japanese expat) artist, writer, and animator Obata makes his American debut. Yumiko is a Japanese-born graphic designer now living a perfectly normal life in London. When her father passes away she suddenly returns to Japan and becomes an observer, and then a participant, in the highly structured rituals she'd left behind. While trying to navigate the cultural divide she now embodies, the memory of a long-ago Noh performance haunts her, relentlessly confusing her ability to make sense of her place in the world. By book's end, she's come to terms with her relationship with her father and the Noh player's symbolism, but a meeting with her mother changes her attitude yet again. Delicate lines and vivid watercolors create bold and flowing scenes, as well as a slow, ethereal Japanese summer. The ending feels like it could use a little more, but this book can easily be appreciated by anyone torn between two cultures or fans of the late Satoshi Kon's (Paprika) works.
