Just So Happens
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
'I still remember arriving in the city for the first time... It wasn't easy... But here, London, is my home.'
Yumiko is a young Japanese woman who has made London her home. She has a job, a boyfriend; Japan seems far away. Then, out of the blue, her brother calls to tell her that her father has died in a mountaineering accident.
Yumiko returns to Tokyo for the funeral and finds herself immersed in the rituals of Japanese life and death – and confronting a decision she hadn’t expected to have to make.
Just So Happens is a graphic novel by a young artist and storyteller of rare talent. Fumio Obata’s drawing, in particular, is marvellous in its power and delicacy.
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.
