OBA Electroplating Factory
Author: Yoshiharu Tsuga
Artist: Yoshiharu Tsuge
Translator: Ryan Holmberg
Lettering: Anna Highfish
Publisher: Drawing and Quarterly
Publication date: August 13, 2024
Rating: Mature
Genre: Slice of Life Manga
The fourth volume of the release of Elder Tsuge’s Collected Works by Drawn and Quarterly, as well as seven stories in 1973 and 1974, experiment with more autobiographical stories inspired by the popular I-Novel genre of literary novels. The nominal story, “Oba Electroplating Factory,” draws on Tsuge’s childhood memories of working in a similar type of small factories (and all the horrors implied), but the other stories draw from Tsuge’s other experiences in his late teens and early twenties.
I read the red flowers and swamps before this volume, so this is not my first experience with Tsuge. I have to say I prefer his travelogue and small town observation stories, but his art is absolutely stunning in portraying both character and environment rather than often awfully frankly portraying postwar poverty as the central setting of this volume. I was especially blown away by the way he portrayed the river in Hanyu in “Wasteland Inn.” Despite the absolute minimalism of the rendering technique, it is a white, unshakable, but clearly full of water.
PC: Masha Zhdanova
I also like how his narrator always looks like a Muppet. I think he draws his face in a very attractive style.
PC: Masha Zhdanova
Tsuge’s work reminds me of Migigeru shigeruuki. For good reason, he was an assistant at Mizuki’s studio, Mizukipro. Holmberg’s essay is honestly worth the price of admission. The depth of his research and the accuracy of his analysis means that they add valuable context to the comics.
One of the subjects discussed in the essay is that Tsuge was influenced by I-Novels. This is a Japanese literary genre similar to self-Fotion in which narrative events correspond to events in the author’s life, and the best-known example in the West may not be the person of Osamu Dazai. I was reading Human for the first time a few weeks ago, and I noticed some similarities between Tsuge’s Yoshio character and Dazai’s Yozo storytelling voice. Yoshio has less oppression of characters to follow than Yozo. I think that’s because, at least in cartoon format, readers aren’t in the characters’ heads as they are in the prose stories. Instead of words passing through the flow, it must be communicated through tattered interiors, empty backgrounds filled with overgrown grass and dingy villages, and the sharp expressions of the people around Yoshio. (But Yoshio is also probably less depressed than Yozo. This is a very easy bar to clear.) Beautiful scenery! A stimulating little frowned face.
PC: Masha Zhdanova
The story in this volume is more than 50 years old, but it is still palpable to this day that many complex emotions are expressed using the medium of the comics. The story in this volume is more erotically curved than the Red Flower Tale, some focusing on the relationship with the inn and the aftermath of such things, and inspired by the real fugitive (following Holmberg’s essay). When gathered together like this, the narrator’s motifs of visiting the tattered inn are beginning to feel the repetitive inn, although their interpretations vary depending on the story. However, collecting them together can make it clear that being “someone who’s missing out” is at least partly about the process of creating “yoshio youth.”
The series of drawing-in and quarterly collections of Yoshihartsuga’s collections contain two different stories. Not only on-page manga, but also meta-alitative of growth and growth as an artist as an artist, creating one shot from a wide range of art and one shot to develop manga magazines, from maturity to decades of artistic gekiga manga in the industry. today. With each volume, I am more knowledgeable and entertained me about a world I had previously little to know. The Oba Electroplating Factory is a collection that is meditative, deeply saddened, and sometimes very entertaining. I’m looking forward to the next volume that will be released in August 2025.
The OBA electroplating factory can be purchased directly from this publisher.
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