'Tokyo These Days: Vol. 1' is a different kind of love story

Art by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga Tokyo These Days: Volume 1 stood out on the shelf at my local library. The clean, simple graphic design of the book cover created an island in a sea of noise. A close-up image of a white Java sparrow fills most of the cover, set against a flat backdrop underlined by a distant Tokyo cityscape.

The bird’s velvety white plumage is subtly refined by layers of washes. A flat, warm neutral background pushes the bird forward, while the cityscape, detailed in pen and ink, recedes in tertiary colors.

The rest of the book fulfills that promise of nuance.

What it’s about

The story centers on Kazuo Shiozawa—Shio to his closest colleagues—who has just quit his job as a longtime editor at a Japanese manga magazine. The special edition he founded has been forced to close due to lagging sales. At first, the devastated Shiozawa tries to break from manga but later finds renewed purpose through it.

Shiozawa beating himself up. Art by Taiyo Matsumoto.

What it’s really about

Tokyo These Days is a meta-manga love story. The complexities of human relationships pulse through the connections between the art form and its practitioners. Infatuation, rejection, heartache, joy, need, rage, frustration, insecurity, loss, regret, hope—I could go on.

It is not a plot-driven tale. The characters are the story. They are three-dimensional: likable, relatable, and flawed.

With feeling

Matsumoto empathizes with characters whose lives are often bleak, strung along by creative ambition, fleeting satisfaction, or memories of past success. As the story begins, each is in crisis, trapped in the clutches of manga. Their stories reveal the psychological, financial, and physical toll creative work can take.

Shiozawa, our protagonist, has an artistically deep yet emotionally distant relationship with the manga creators he works with. Most of his personal encounters begin with something akin to “Haven’t seen you for a while.” Beautiful and sad, that connection to the artists is often indirect: He intuits their personal qualities, thoughts, and feelings through their work.
Chosaku Miyazaki, a once-iconic and popular manga creator, is now suffering from lagging sales, failing health, and an eroding relationship with his daughter. He retreats to pachinko parlors and batting cages, escaping his work and troubles.
Shu Aoki is a youthful, melodramatic manga creator, desperate for validation. Although talented, he is racked with self-doubt and repeatedly undermines himself through emotional outbursts.
Ririko Hayashi is Aoki’s young, still-unproven editor. She is frustrated by her inability to gain respect and make inroads with the artist. She seeks out the revered Shiozawa for advice.
Shin Arashiyama and Kaoru Kiso are former manga creators. Arashiyama has been burned out by the industry; Kiso has been overlooked by it.
Reiko Tachibana is a recently deceased once-popular manga creator who suffered for her art. A conversation with Tachibana’s ghost inspires Shiozawa to re-embrace manga.

Sound of the city. Art by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Cityscape

Tokyo and its weather function almost like characters, moving between the background and foreground. Both become forces the characters must regard and navigate. Skies alternate between dark rain clouds and beautiful fields of stars.

The omnipresent urban “GWOO” and “HWOOO” sounds are a reminder of the vast machine that contains our characters. Onomatopoeic sound effects spelled out in the panels help weave the environment visually and narratively into the story. There’s the “KT-UNK” of a train on its tracks, the “PTAM” of doors closing, the “PSHMP” of an iron.

Dim view of the business

Distress about the state of the manga industry is plain. Artists see an obsession with profits and marketing metrics at the expense of quality. The industry is portrayed as both a provider of coveted opportunities and a crusher of creative souls.

A minor character, an executive named Iga, is framed as self-serving, untrustworthy, and shockingly unappreciative of the retiring Shiozawa’s long service.

While cleaning a mess outside his building, Shiozawa appears to allude to the manga industry: “Crows did this. … They made a mess. … Everyone hates crows. … Crows are just in it for themselves. Guess that’s one way to live.”

Burned-out Arashiyama is more direct: “I poured my whole life into [manga]. … I was sick of the manga business. I’d lost my love for it. … I was sick of the editors, who were fixated on profits above everything else. … Sick of readers who only appreciate flashy storytelling.”

I kept flipping back to this page as I read, just to enjoy its beauty and graphic quality. Art by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Bright view of the visuals

Matsumoto’s thoughtful characterization and storytelling extend into the book’s visuals. Characters are instantly recognizable by distinctive traits, such as Shiozawa’s thick-rimmed glasses and Chosaku’s rotund profile and ever-present cap.

Environments are carefully planned, and even inanimate elements, gorgeously and organically drawn, support the story. Near the close of chapter one, we see Shiozawa ironing in his apartment as he talks with his bird. His crisis is represented in the bars of the birdcage and his apartment walls, laden with a lifetime of collected manga, which appear to close in around him.

Shiozawa’s umbrella, which protects him from storms, is a standout literary and visual element. When a gust of wind takes it, Shiozawa is left vulnerable and alone on the streets. The umbrella becomes a dynamic graphic device, sweeping through the panels before it is lost—unreachable and posterized against the stormy night sky.

The impact of Matsumoto’s drawings is heightened by his page layouts. Panels continually change in size and composition. A panel might contain a fully furnished room with multiple characters or focus tightly on a fraction of a single face or object. Pages are packed, but not overly so.

Each chapter is punctuated by a full-page cityscape—a brief respite for the reader, narratively and visually, and a reminder of the story’s larger context.

The lettering is concise, clear, and highly readable, with words neatly contained in their balloons. The hand-drawn letterforms echo the book’s illustration style.

There are lots of characters in the book, but never any confusion about who’s who—thanks to clarifying character designs like Chosaku’s, above. Art by Taiyo Matsumoto.

Final thoughts

Tokyo These Days: Volume 1 was an enjoyable place to spend time. Volumes 2 and 3 have been added to my wish list, not because I need to know how the story resolves, but because I’d like to spend more time in this environment with these characters.

Little bits

Meta-manga. Meta-manga, as The New York Public Library describes it, is manga about manga—its creators, editors, industry, and culture. They offer suggested reading if you’d like more.
A good place to start. If you’re not a manga reader, and you’re worried that meta-manga like Tokyo These Days might be a daunting place to start, don’t be. This book is a terrific entry into the manga world.
“Is there someone else in there with you?” Does Shiozawa really talk to his bird and to a ghost? Or does he invent them as a way to converse with himself? It’s not crystal clear, but neither tells him anything he doesn’t already know.
Cultural thin ice. I am not an authority on manga or Japanese culture, so I try to be careful about making assumptions. For example, as a Westerner, it seemed notable that Shiozawa washes the floor in the foyer of his apartment building and sweeps the sidewalk—jobs I might associate with maintenance employees. I pondered possible symbolic meanings behind the gestures. A little research led me to sōji tōban, or rotating cleaning duty, a familiar practice in some Japanese communal settings. The scene may be less symbolically loaded than I first imagined.
Identifying. Having worked at newspapers for many years, I felt Shiozawa’s pain and frustration after his magazine folded. So much sweat and passion goes into making a good publication. It’s difficult not to feel a sense of personal failure even when an outcome is beyond your control.
Small detail. I just noticed, as I edit this post, that the black frames of Shiozawa’s glasses are held together by conspicuous white tape. Is it a hint at his financial situation, his frugality, his priorities, or simply the way he solves a problem? I don’t know, but now I can’t stop noticing it.
Library find. As mentioned, I found Tokyo These Days: Volume 1 at my local library. Thank you, thoughtful librarians, for making such books available. More, please.

DETAILS