''A Drunken Dream and Other Stories'' is a Japanese

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

anthology written and illustrated by

Moto Hagio is a Japanese manga artist. Regarded for her contributions to ''shōjo'' manga ( manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of a ...

, collecting a variety of her short stories originally from 1970 to 2007.

Publication

The stories were selected by translator

Rachel Matt Thorn Rachel Thorn (formerly Matt Thorn; born May 12, 1965) is a cultural anthropologist and an associate professor in the Department of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga in Japan. She is best known in North America for he ...

to be an introduction to Hagio for English speakers, with the input of a

mixi is an online Japanese social networking service. It was founded in 1999 and is owned by Mixi, Inc. (). As of September 2012, Mixi had about 14 million monthly active users, with about 8.6 million of those on smartphones. Mixi, Inc. was founded b ...

fan club for Hagio. The anthology also contains an interview with the author, and an article about the

Year 24 Group The is a grouping of female manga artists who heavily influenced ''shōjo'' manga (Japanese girls' comics) beginning in the 1970s. While ''shōjo'' manga of the 1950s and 1960s largely consisted of simple stories marketed towards elementary s ...

, which Hagio belongs to. Both supporting articles were excerpted from articles originally published in

The Comics Journal ''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing re ...

#269. To launch the book, Hagio attended

Comic-Con A comic book convention or comic-con is an event with a primary focus on comic books and comic book culture, in which comic book Fan (person), fans gather to meet creators, experts, and each other. Commonly, comic conventions are multi-day events ...

2010. The manga is presented in unflipped format and the article about the Year 24 Group and the interview with Moto Hagio are presented as appendices in the left of the book, reading from left to right.

Volume list

Original place of publication:

Reception

Katherine Dacey describes "Bianca" as a "lovely, unabashedly Romantic story" and as "a meditation on artistic inspiration". Dacey notes that other stories in the book "explore the complexity of familial relationships". Dacey praised Hagio's ability to "make the ineffable speak through pictures". Snow Wildsmith praised the flow of the anthology and felt the anthology's theme was that of connections between people, recommending it to fans of

Fumi Yoshinaga is a Japanese manga artist known for her shōjo and boys' love works. Life Fumi Yoshinaga was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1971. She discovered amateur manga, doujinshi, in junior high school, when a friend showed her a doujinshi depicting a roman ...

and

Mitsukazu Mihara is a Japanese illustrator who helped to influence the Gothic Lolita look through her illustrations, particularly as the cover illustrator for the first eight volumes of the ''Gothic & Lolita Bible''. In 1994, she won a contest in the Japanese mang ...

. Wildsmith praised the details in Hagio's art, and felt that the art dated well.

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

felt Hagio's works were more restrained and subtle than modern

shōjo manga is an editorial category of Japanese comics targeting an audience of adolescent females and young adult women. It is, along with manga (targeting adolescent boys), manga (targeting young adult and adult men), and manga (targeting adul ...

, saying that this reflects Hagio's wisdom and "creative strength". Lissa Pattillo describes the anthology as "a mature collection of stories that aims to provoke thought and feeling and succeeds endearingly". Thomas Zoth describes the presentation of the book as "part textbook, and part holy book". His only complaint about the presentation of the book is that he found the font choice reminiscent of ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, ...

''. Joe McCulloch feels that the title story is "more interested in evoking sensations of exquisite heartache and romantic frustration than delineating psychological realism or building suspense". Nicole Rudick feels that "The theme of spiritual crisis runs throughout Hagio's stories—from the mundane ('Angel') to the surreal ('Hanshin: Half-God') to the phantasmagoric ('A Drunken Dream')". David Welsh found it easy to sympathise with Hagio's heroes. Noah Berlatsky disliked the first four stories, suggesting that Hagio's characterisations are poor, and that a fantasy or science fiction setting can help to distract from this. The volume has been nominated for an

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

References

General

Specific

{{DEFAULTSORT:Drunken Dream and Other Stories 2010 manga Fantagraphics titles Josei manga Manga anthologies Moto Hagio Shogakukan manga