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Folklore Series 2 05-16 18:38
A series of 5 \'picture book\' manga for very young children, Ishinomori crafts his own tales that fit right at home with well-known Japanese folklore, gracing them with dozens and dozens of gorgeously done two-page spreads.
- **Child of the Stars** - Hikaru is a boy of mysterious parentage, said to have come down from the stars. One day, Hikaru comes to face an oni with his own reason for attacking Hikaru, one connected to Hikaru\'s past.
- **The Dragon\'s Whiskers** - Taro\'s mother is ill, but legend has it that if she drinks a boiled dragon\'s whisker, her illness will be cured. Taro goes on his quest to obtain this whisker.
- **Tale of the 1000 Year-Old Cedar** - A tengu father suddenly finds himself responsible for several human children. A yamauba offers to care for the children by becoming their mother, but he refuses. Frustrated, the yamauba is set on making him suffer...
- **Aim For It! Saburota** - Saburota\'s father was killed by a whale (\'the white monster\'), and his mother dies from the shock. Now orphaned, Saburota aims to become a great harpooner to avenge his parent\'s deaths.
- **Kon Kon Kon** - A young boy who doubts kitsune ends up crossing paths with one, as he suddenly ends up in different worlds, much to his confusion...
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Gekiga Yose: Fallen Words 8.1 01-29 01:06
*Currently Out-of-Print with no digital edition from Drawn & Quarterly*
In Fallen Words, Yoshihiro Tatsumi takes up the oral tradition of rakugo and breathes new life into it by shifting the format from spoken word to manga. Each of the eight stories in the collection is lifted from the Edo-era Japanese storytelling form. As Tatsumi notes in the afterword, the world of rakugo, filled with mystery, emotion, revenge, hope, and, of course, love, overlaps perfectly with the world of Gekiga that he has spent the better part of his life developing.
These slice-of-life stories resonate with modern readers thanks to their comedic elements and familiarity with human idiosyncrasies. In one, a father finds his son too bookish and arranges for two workers to take the young man to a brothel on the pretext of visiting a new shrine. In another particularly beloved rakugo tale, a married man falls in love with a prostitute. When his wife finds out, she is enraged and sets a curse on the other woman. The prostitute responds by cursing the wife, and the two escalate in a spiral of voodoo doll cursing. Soon both are dead, but even death can’t extinguish their jealousy.
Tatsumi’s love of wordplay shines through in the telling of these whimsical stories, and yet he still offers timeless insight into human nature.
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