is a thinly veiled autobiographical 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 ...
written and illustrated by
Yoshihiro Tatsumi
was a Japanese manga artist whose work was first published in his teens, and continued through the rest of his life. He is widely credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative manga in Japan, having allegedly coined the term in 1957. Hi ...
that chronicles his life from 1945 to 1960, the early stages of his career as a cartoonist.
The book earned Tatsumi the
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize
Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly manga prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun. The prize has been awarded since 1997, in Tokyo, Japan.
Current ...
, and won two
Eisner Awards
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 ...
.
The work has been adapted into an animated feature film, ''
Tatsumi Tatsumi is a Japanese name. It may refer to:
People
Surname
*Daiyū Tatsumi (born 1940), Japanese former sumo wrestler
*Juri Tatsumi (born 1979), Japanese synchronised swimmer
*Naofumi Tatsumi (1845–1907), Japanese general of the Imperial Army
* ...
'', directed by
Eric Khoo
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, death_place =
, death_cause =
, resting_place =
, nationality = Singaporean
, alma_mater = Uni ...
and released in 2011.
Publication history
Tatsumi spent 11 years working on ''A Drifting Life''.
It was released in Japan as two ''
bound volumes'' on November 20, 2008. It is licensed in North America by
Drawn & Quarterly
Drawn & Quarterly is a publishing company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, specializing in comics. It publishes primarily comic books, graphic novels and comic strip collections. The books it publishes are noted for their artistic content, ...
and was released as an 840-page ''
wide-ban'' volume in April 2009.
The English version was translated by Taro Nettleton, and edited and designed by American cartoonist
Adrian Tomine
Adrian Tomine (; born May 31, 1974) is an American cartoonist. He is best known for his ongoing comic book series ''Optic Nerve'' and his illustrations in ''The New Yorker''.
Early life
Adrian Tomine was born May 31, 1974, in Sacramento, Calif ...
.
The book has been translated into French as ''Une Vie dans les marges'' ("A Life on the Margins") (Editions Cornelius, 2011), and into German as ''Gegen den Strom — Eine Autobiografie in Bilder'' ("Against the Current — an Autobiography in Pictures") (Carlsen Verlag, 2013). A Brazilian translation, ''Vida à Deriva'' ("A Life Adrift"), was published in 2021 by Veneta.
Plot
Hiroshi Katsumi (Yoshihiro Tatsumi) and his sickly older brother Okimasa (Shōichi Sakurai) work on amateur
four-panel 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 ...
to submit to magazines that feature reader's work, winning several times. After like-minded children correspond with Hiroshi, they form the Children's Manga Association. This results in a round table discussion for the grade school edition of ''
Mainichi Shimbun
The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by
In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (previ ...
'' with
Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu''; – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, and animator. Born in Osaka Prefecture, his prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such ...
. Hiroshi forms a relationship with Tezuka, who encourages him to try making longer stories. also gives him feedback and advice for his longer manga through letters. After Okimasa rips one of his works in progress, Hiroshi momentarily quits manga, but is encouraged after a letter from Ōshiro. Ōshiro later asks to redraw and publish Katsumi's ''Happily Adrift'', but does not end up doing so. Ōshiro offers Hiroshi a chance to live at his home "
dojo
A is a hall or place for immersive learning or meditation. This is traditionally in the field of martial arts, but has been seen increasingly in other fields, such as meditation and software development. The term literally means "place of the ...
" with other aspiring manga artists, but Hiroshi decides to postpone until he graduates high school. One of the members of Ōshiro's dojo, Yoshiyasu Ōtomo, shows Katsumi's ''Children's Island'' to the publisher Tsuru Shobo, who publishes it, though they preemptively reject his next work. Hiroshi decides to attend college instead of apprenticing with Ōshiro, studying for
entrance exams
This is a list of standardized tests that students may need to take for admissions to various colleges or universities. Tests of language proficiency are excluded here.
Only tests not included within a certain secondary schooling curriculum are l ...
, but purposefully doesn't finish the exam. He meets with publisher Kenbunsha, who commissions him to create a detective story similar to
Lupin
''Lupinus'', commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet etc., is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur ...
, but they reduce their payment offer so instead he publishes ''Seven Faces'' with , with whom he would go on to publish many works. Okimasa also joins Katsumi at Hinomaru.
Hinomaru's editor Kuroda establishes a new monthly collection with its top authors titled ''Shadow'' (''Kage''). Katsumi aspires to create more experimental manga utilizing cinematic techniques, an "anti-manga manga", against his friendly rival and colleague
Masahiko Matsumoto
was a Japanese manga artist. He is considered a pioneer of alternative manga through his incorporation of cinematic techniques into manga from the mid-1950s onward. His style known as '' komaga'', together with the manga of Yoshihiro Tatsumi and ...
. Because ''Shadow'' was reducing its artists' output, Hinomaru requests them to also work on full-length work. It facilitates this by putting Katsumi, Matsumoto,
Takao Saito
was a Japanese manga artist, although he rejected the term and considered his work gekiga. He was best known for '' Golgo 13'', which has been serialized in ''Big Comic'' since 1968, making it the oldest manga still in publication. ''Golgo ...
, and Kuroda in a "manga camp", an apartment in
Tennōji-ku, Osaka
is one of 24 wards of Osaka, Japan. It is named after the ''Shitennō-ji'' (Temple of the Four Heavenly Kings), which is located in the ward.
General information
Tennōji Station is the city's main southeastern rail terminal with Osaka Munici ...
. However, they are not very productive in the new environment and heat, and Katsumi finds himself attracted to the downstairs Suzume Diner's madam. Hinomaru also ventures into publishing gag panel manga from Tokyo artists, but this results in a large loss. After Matsumoto leaves the camp and Okimasa gets hospitalized, Katsumi and Saito leave as well. Back home, Katsumi experiences a burst of creativity and writes the manga he wanted to, titled ''
Black Blizzard''. Hinomaru starts to run out of funds and, after the boss is arrested for counterfeiting securities, Hinomaru goes bankrupt.
Reception
''A Drifting Life'' has won the 13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009. It was nominated for three categories for the
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 ...
:
Best Reality-Based Work, ''
Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Asia'' and Best Lettering for comics creator Adrian Tomine. It won two Eisner Awards in 2010: Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Asia category and Best Reality-Based Work of the year. In a spate of
About.com
Dotdash Meredith (formerly About.com) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, home, food, finance, tech, beauty, l ...
online user polls in 2009, it was voted 7th most recommended manga for grown, ups. 11th most anticipated manga, 6th best new seinen/josei manga, 3rd best one-shot manga and best new edition of classic manga.
Shaenon K. Garrity
Shaenon K. Garrity is a webcomic creator and science-fiction author best known for her webcomics ''Narbonic'' and '' Skin Horse''. She collaborated with various artists to write webcomics for the Modern Tales-family of webcomic subscription serv ...
votes ''A Drifting Life'' as the 10th best defining manga. It won an award at the 2012
Angoulême International Comics Festival
The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after Lu ...
. It was 3rd on
''The New York Times'' Best Seller list for paperback graphic books for the week ending on April 18, 2009.
Anime News Network
Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and oth ...
's Casey Brienza commends the manga for "a magnificent presentation, well told and wonderfully illustrated, of an important historical document" but criticises it for "the specialized subject matter may not appeal to readers who do not share similar, specialized interests". ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''s Dwight Garner commends Tatsumi's art saying "is more sophisticated, retaining the form's strange sparkle even at gloomy moments; he definitely does write manga that isn't quite manga. The genre can be a difficult one in which to portray aging. Mr. Tatsumi looks just about the same here at ages 10 and 25". he further comments "a book like ''A Drifting Life'' is fairly easy to pick apart on a drawing-by-drawing or line-by-line basis. Don't make that mistake. Its pleasures are cumulative; the book has a rolling, rumbling grandeur. It's as if someone had taken a Haruki Murakami novel and drawn, beautifully and comprehensively, in its margins". Manga Worth Reading's Johanna Draper Carlson criticises the manga saying, "I was also sometimes uncertain as to the depth of the emotion the lead character was feeling. The obvious reactions were there — determination, for example, to finish a work for a publisher — but the more subtler feelings were missing". Comics212's Christopher Butcher comments "At its heart ''A Drifting Life'' is a memoir, filled with a density of details to give it a setting and place that will be immediately familiar to Japanese readers of the last generation but that will largely evade North American ones. This is not a bad thing, if anything the unfamiliarity of the time and place of this story will add to the experience of the lead drifting through his life, tied only to the comic that I hope you'll be holding in your hands".
Comic Book Resources
''Comic Book Resources'', also known by the initialism CBR, is a website dedicated to the coverage of comic book–related news and discussion.
History
Comic Book Resources was founded by Jonah Weiland in 1995 as a development of the Kingdom Co ...
's Chris Mautner commends the manga for its "basic
bildungsroman
In literary criticism, a ''Bildungsroman'' (, plural ''Bildungsromane'', ) is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood ( coming of age), in which character change is impo ...
qualities. At its heart, A Drifting Life is the simple story of a young man discovering his talent and by extension his place in the world. It's told in as direct and plain a manner as possible, but still full of energy and passion".
References
External links
*''A Drifting Life'' a
Drawn and Quarterly*
''LA Times'''s 3-page reviewPaul Gravett's article
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drifting Life, A
2008 manga
Autobiographical anime and manga
Drama anime and manga
Drawn & Quarterly titles
Historical anime and manga
Manga creation in anime and manga
Romance anime and manga
Seinen manga
Winner of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (Grand Prize)
Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Gekiga