Review by Booklist Review
Manga legend Tatsumi is renowned for his grim gekiga stories depicting buffeted souls struggling to survive in harsh post-WWII Japanese society. Here he's inspired by a far earlier tradition, the performance-based oral storytelling technique of rakugo. Set in Edo-period Japan, these eight simple tales deal in archetypical situations: deadbeat guests hoodwink credulous innkeepers, a merchant tries to balance a wife and a mistress, a popular prostitute creates havoc at her brothel, a nebbish befriends and then tries to outwit the Grim Reaper, a shrewd wife teaches her spendthrift husband a lesson. The humor infusing these yarns is uncharacteristic of Tatsumi, but his fans will recognize the portrayals of ineffectual working-class men striving for a bit of pleasure. In their unstinting depiction of human foibles as well as their starkly effective visual simplicity, these tales aren't as far from Tatsumi's groundbreaking gekiga work as one would expect. While it lacks the dramatic impact of his best-known work, this collection attests that at 75, Tatsumi remains committed to exploring new styles within the manga format.--Flagg, Gordon Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
With each of the eight short stories in Fallen Words, Tatsumi (A Drifting Life, Abandon the Old in Tokyo) shows us the innovation and insight that make him one of the most relevant figures in Japanese comics today. In this work he draws upon the storytelling tradition of rakugo-in which a live storyteller recounts both sides of a conversation-and provides a series of cautionary tales about day-to-day hopes, fears, and petty excesses. What makes these moral fables so enjoyable to read is the humor that the author brings to them; readers can relate to his characters, sympathize with them, and enjoy a chuckle or two as Tatsumi exposes their delightful fallibility. He also elicits a smile in the way he brings about the resolutions to his fables, whether through a quirk of fate (in "The God of Death") or through a humorous linguistic association (in "Escape of the Sparrows"). As the artist who coined the term gekiga ("dramatic pictures"), but was nonetheless influenced by mainstream manga, Tatsumi's flat yet expressive drawings always move these short narratives forward without ever feeling unnecessarily distracted by the visual-the results flow as naturally as a rakugo tale. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
