Archive for the Comic Essay Category


Meisou Senshi – Nagata Kabi (迷走戦士・永田カビ)

June 13th, 2021

In my recent conversation on with the folks at Manga Mavericks about My Alcoholic Escape From Reality (a conversation that will go up on their Patreon later this month) we talked a little bit about this book as well. In the comments on Nagata Kabi’s TCAF spotlight, some lovely person expressed a wish that the author’s next book is about her hugging kittens. Well…it is definitely not that. 

Having given herself recognition that her comic essays are a valid form of artistic expression, Nagata-sensei has once again turned the spotlight on herself. In Meisou Senshi – Nagata Kabi (迷走戦士・永田カビ), she  tackles some of the things we might have been asking all along about her relationship with her gender and sexuality…and how that, and her physical and mental health,  affect and are affected by that relationship.

This is not an easy book to read. If anything, it open up whole new areas of discomfort. Content Warning: this book deals with sexual assault as a child. But, as we make our way through this in her wake, we can see (more clearly than we can with ourselves) how pieces of a life make up a whole. Her discussion of how  insurmountable was the effort of filling out the questions on a dating app, really struck home with me in regards to something wholly unrelated to dating.

Once again we see the power of a comic essay. This book contains increasingly intimate knowledge of her past, and tantalizing tidbits of her present, but we know we will never know the actual person through these.  These chapters are the comic equivalent of Van Gogh’s self-portraits….a visual record of her over time looking at a mirror and drawing what she sees. Some days the face that looks back at her is more haunted than others…sometimes it is almost happy. This records allows her to explore why that might be…and expose what the roots of that haunted look is.

I am curious, for reasons that will become immediately apparent when you read this book, what her parents thought of it. Nagata-sensei’s feelings about how she hurt her family in her initial volumes are made plain in later volumes and in her TCAF interview. This volume wasn’t going to make for light dinner table conversation and yet, I got the feeling that she and her family may have struck a bargain over this and while it may not be fun, they won’t be blindsided again.

Seven Seas has announced the license of this book as My Wandering Warrior Existence, which has a projected release date in English of March 2022. If you don’t want to wait, you can read this online in Japanese on Web Action. 

Yet again, I will not be rating this book, for reasons that will become apparent when you read it.

It is compelling.

Next up, we return to the beginning, with her plumbing the depth of her relationship with food, in Meisou Senshi・Nagata Kabi Gourmet De GO!  (迷走戦士・永田カビ グルメでGO！) the first chapter of which available on Web Action.





My Solo Exchange Diary 2 Manga (English)

March 29th, 2019

Kabi Nagata’s My Solo Exchange Diary 2 begins with an apology. At the end of the last book, she explains, we may have been rooting for her as she met someone she felt she could begin to imagine having some kind of feelings for. But that person does not come into this book.

Instead, this book is about the revolving door of her life, as she develops an addiction, and does stints in the hospital as she valiantly lives with what is obviously ever-more crushing depression, She’s careful at the end to explain that this manga is just one piece of her life – but that it is, in a very real way, her life. Boundaries are hard for a lot of people and people who are ill or disabled, often have an extra difficult time defining and/or defending boundaries. That she’s set some for us, the reader, at the end is the most positive sign, in my opinion. The conversation with her editor about it is terrific.

Even more importantly, this volume includes an original, non-essay work, “Chika-chan’s Depression” which was surprisingly hopeful.

Nothing about this volume is easy. Nothing about being Nagata-sensei is easy, right now, I think. But this comic essay is an important piece of Graphic Medicine. And regardless of the content, we know this is a story about a queer woman dealing with a severe chronic illness for which treatments are inconsistent at best. Again, it is my opinion that makes this worth reading, as “LGBTQ individuals are almost 3 times more likely than others to experience a mental health condition such as major depression or generalized anxiety disorder” according to National Association on Mental Illness (and if you are suffering from either, please visit the NAMI site or call their helpline!)

No ratings will be assessed for this book, as I do not feel I can adequately judge the content of a person’s life. I hope that her other readers and reviewers will consider that this is her life when doing a review. 





Otona no Hattatsu Shougai Kamoshirenai!? Manga / おとなの発達障害かもしれない! ?

September 23rd, 2018

In 2017, Morishima Akiko-sensei published a comic essay in which she speaks at length about living with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  Otona no Hattatsu Shougai Kamoshirenai!?  (おとなの発達障害かもしれない! ?), which translates to something like, “Is it possibly an adult development disorder!?” is a comic essay which her details her struggles working, her diagnosis, drug treatment – even family history. It’s an unprecedented look at extremely personal issues, and exactly the kind of thing that makes for a powerful and compelling comic essay. (It’s exactly the kind of thing East Press is putting out now – My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness is probably their best-selling book so far, but they’ve been really digging in and publishing a lot of these personal confidentials about topics we don’t talk about – depression, AHDH, sexuality, gender, abuse, and the like.)

In this volume, we begin with Morishima-sensei’s description of concentration issues, energy highs and lows and other behaviors symptomatic of ADHD. After she did some research on the disorder, she researched clinics, until she found one that seemed like a good choice for her. Once she had her diagnosis, she then embarks on drug and behavioral therapy. More difficult, she moves in with her injured mother, as she’s attempting to work out a dosage schedule that suits her work and her body. Living with her mother makes her aware that her developmental disorder comes from a family medical history of this and similar issues. 

Much of the book is taken up with Morishima-sensei looking at episodes from her childhood with fresh eyes and realizing now what drove her behaviors then. There is a touching part where she “outs” herself as a Yuri manga artist and admits to loving drawing girls so very much.

Luckily for Morishima-sensei, she has two friends with children who have ADHD and are able to provide her with perspective and common ground (and a much-needed sense that whatever-this-new-thing-is is not abnormal.)  By the end of the manga, she’s reconnected with friends, as well. In one of the most encouraging endings to a comic essay I’ve seen, we see her at her drawing table, approaching her work one panel, then one more, then another.  

This is, without exception, the cutest book about ADHD ever. I originally picked it up because I like Morishima-sensei, but it was such a good book that I couldn’t put it down. I’m going to add these two panels to my screensaver to remind me of her resolve and re-engage my own.

 

Ratings:

Overall – 9

It was my very genuine pleasure to be able to spend a few hours once again with Morishima-sensei last spring and she looked great. (Which has nothing to do with health, as we all know.) I wish her all the very best. Once again, an impressive manga from the pen of Morishima Akiko-sensei.





LGBTQ Comic Essay: The Big Book of Bisexual Trials and Errors

December 11th, 2017

Elizabeth Beier’s The Big Book of Bisexual Trials and Errors strikes that rare balance between self-reflection and redemption that we so desperately need in 2017. Equally importantly, this tale of bisexual life is honest, and eschews the kind of apology or explanation that make other books about bisexuality tiresome.

By eschewing explanation or teaching, Beier allows readers to immerse themselves wholly in her experiences, and learn who Elizabeth Beier is through her own eyes. (I want to make that plain, because the Elizabeth Beier I know is, unsurprisingly, more attractive and vivacious than the one she sees.) And, to some extent this book is less about dating than it is Beier opening up the choose-your-own-adventure that is her life to us for our entertainment.

Beier’s art highlights the beauty and nobility of the people she draws except, almost predictably herself. Her best moments are reserved for others…until that linchpin moment on stage, when she discovers her own radiance. (a moment made even more triumphant by the loathing with which she had previouslyregarded herself. ) It’s uncomfortable to see that deeply and intimately into a person’s head  – moreso when one knows and likes that person. For that reason, I found the book uncomfortable from time to time, but no more than any other equally navel-starring, autobiographical comic essays. 

Ultimately, Beier’s tale of self-acceptance and the beautiful renderings of the people around her make this book an absolute joy  to read.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

When Beier flies, she soars. A fantastic first book and here’s hoping that she’ll soar even farther now that she appreciates her own wings.





Sabishi-sugi Rezu Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report (さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ)

November 4th, 2016

51a2nxeuzdl-_sx351_bo1204203200_Nagata Kabi’s Sabishi-sugi Rezu Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report (さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ) was just licensed by Seven Seas as My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, so I bumped it up on the to-read pile, because I wanted to have my own impression of the work before reading it through the filter of a translator.

Nagata’s work was popular on the Japanese art platform Pixiv before it was picked up by East Press, a publisher that has given us a number of LGBTQ comic essays in the past few years. The story is an  autobiographical account of her struggle with depression, anorexia and anxiety far more than it is an account of her life as a lesbian.

The story begins as she is about to have sex with a woman, then immediately rewinds to ten years early as Nagata graduates high school. We watch as depression strips her of everything society holds up as the ideal of a human life. It’s a hard read, especially if you’ve been depressed, and know how heavy the burden is.

Nagata’s art isn’t super sophisticated, but it’s not bad. It isn’t a pretty manga – not that it has to be or that I expected it to be. The pink, white and black color scheme, and her art style combined to make it a more jarring experience, which I believe was the intent. The color scheme and art make it hard to avoid the prickly emotions of the story.

She ends up with a life and a career, but the loneliness is still there, although lessened. One closes the books with a prayer that she has some good people in her life now, who will fill some of those emotional and physical needs.

I think the story will resonate for a lot of people, although I am not one of them. I’m accustomed to my own bouts of depression and burn-out, but do not find solace in other people’s tales of their own experience. (I understand that this makes me atypical, but why should today be any different? ^_^) Nonetheless, I can easily imagine a lot of people will feel validated by this book and the knowledge that they are not alone in their travails.

I’ll be very interested to see what you all have to say about the English-language version of this when it is released next year!

Ratings:

Art – 6
Story – 7
Character – 7
Service – 2
Yuri – 7

Overall – 7