A nice, lovely collection of short stories by a manga-ka who is pretty much an expert at these kinds of stories. Very poignant and beautifully rendered on the page. ( )

90/2020. A "josei" manga (comic for adult women), containing five interlinked short stories in six chapters, by a respected mangaka. I was given the translation into French and, although mon français est mauvais, and reading right to left didn't make it any easier for me, I managed to understand these slice of life tales about relationships with characters and plot revealed mostly through the art, which in typical manga style combines realism, idealisation, and expressive caricature. The themes are being a daughter, being a mother, being unlovingly sexual, being lovingly humanitarian, being a good friend to your (female) peers, and being a daughter revisited.

Fumi Yoshinaga: "I want to show the people who didn't win, whose dreams didn't come true. It is not possible for everybody to get first prize. I want my readers to understand the happiness that people can get from trying hard, going through the process, and getting frustrated."

The first story is told from the point of view of a 30 year old daughter who still lives with her 50 year old widowed mother and doesn't want to share that mother with a man, especially not a 27 year old professional host beginning a new acting career. I wasn't expecting this to make me laugh aloud in places but it did. Apart from that it's a simple story of mildly inappropriate age-gap love that makes two people happy and one person unhappy.

The second story starts with a female college student sexually harassing her male lecturer, who subsequently claims he felt obliged to let her "rape" him then fell in love with her, then when he asks her to go with him on a cinema date the student rejects her lecturer because she supposedly prefers more abusive men... but we only ever see his side of the story as told to his acquaintances at dinner parties, although I can't conclude whether this was the reading intended by Yoshinaga or me reading into the work.

The third story, in two chapters, is from the pov of a young woman who chooses to seek an arranged marriage and finds the most viable candidate has a limp and an overprotective mother who might or might not be a mother-in-law from hell. She then declares that she'll never marry because she loves everyone equally, as she was brought up to do by her now deceased communist grandfather. I won't spoiler the surprise ending. My main takeaway from this story is that three phenomenon are truly global: curry, cute animal art, and amusingly outspoken aunties.

The fourth story is the reminiscences of a 30 year old working woman about the clashes between the schoolgirl ideals of her female friends and their adult realities, especially the remaining inequalities between women and men in paid work and marriage/housekeeping. Contains strong intimations of violent child abuse.

The fifth and last story shows the 50 year old mother from the first story and her relationship with her own mother, bringing the cycle full circle. There's an amusing auntie in this tale too.

"Même une mère, en fin de compte, n'est rien d'autre qu'un individu imparfait." ( )

So... interesting. A short story collection with some overlap. I liked it... but it isn't her best work and the content isn't even really the kind of stories Yoshinaga does best. I'm not sure i get why it was licensed, but hey, why not. ( )