Remembering Yoshihiro Tatsumi: Man who reformed Japanese comic books

There is no real consensus on who coined the term "graphic novel", but we do know that it probably started when Will Eisner was trying to sell A Contract With God, a comic book meant for grown-ups, discerning readers; knowing that publishers probably won't take a "comic book" seriously, he described it as a "graphic novel". The rest, as they say, is history. Similarly, when a young Japanese artist was creating short, darkly funny strips in the '50s and the '60s, he found that the word "manga" (Japanese for "whimsical pictures") was woefully inadequate to describe what he was doing.

Moreover, he felt like he ought to make a statement, to show the Japanese people how formulaic and monotonous the manga world had become. He thus coined the term "gekiga" (Japanese for "dramatic pictures") to signal the arrival of a new kind of comics: short, satirical, with the ability to send shockwaves through the reader with its politically and socially explosive material. That artist was Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who passed away on Saturday; he was 79 years old.

The manga industry in Japan today is dominated by books that are hyper-specialised; age-group specific manga, self-help manga, women-centric manga and so on. In such a scenario, it's fair to say that not many manga artists in Japan are familiar with Tatsumi's pioneering work. Even Western audiences, by and far, know him mostly because of A Drifting Life, his epic 840-page autobiography, as complete a portrait of the artist as a young man as you will ever come across. In my humble opinion, though, Tatsumi's short stories - collected in three volumes by the Canadian publishers Drawn and Quarterly - are the real reason why the comics world owes such a debt to him.

A lot of the stories in Good-Bye (Drawn and Quarterly, 2008) were set during the Japan of the '70s, apart from the title story, which was set in the 1945-52 American occupation of Japan. Modern-day readers, thanks to Haruki Murakami, are now familiar with the narrative of Japan's uneasy adoption of Western pop cultural ethos. Tatsumi's work, however, brings us the prequels to these stories; in the '70s, Japan is flush in the middle of a construction boom. The working class is burning the candle at both ends. A highly disciplined life, with only the barest possible sources of physical and intellectual nourishment, is what is expected of them. 

Tatsumi's characters are often men who are unable to come to terms with the rapid changes in Japanese society. This neurosis manifests itself through sexual tics and preferences, generally seen as "perverted" or "unnatural" by the mainstream. In Click Click Click, the narrator has a foot fetish and is aroused by touching women's shoes. In Unpaid, the protagonist is an old, over-the-hill entrepreneur who fails to save his dying company. Ridiculed and shunned by everybody he cares about, including and especially his former employees, he goes to a "dog appreciation club" which offers patrons "a nice day with a cute dog". Our man, however, seeks solace in a naked cuddle with a toothless dog (who clearly stirred feelings of solidarity within him), in a brave and brilliantly illustrated scene.

His most popular story, however, remains Good-Bye, set in the early days of the American occupation of Japan. It has a woman as the protagonist, a simple Japanese girl with a drunkard, ne'er-do-well father. In order to feed herself, she starts sleeping with American GIs for money, something which the father accepts grudgingly. The story ends with a visceral, violent, charged-up sex scene that left many readers shocked. To my mind, it is as powerful as the climax of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. 

My favourite among the three Drawn and Quarterly volumes is Abandon the Old in Tokyo (2006), which included Unpaid as well as The Hole, The Washer and a host of other short fiction masterpieces. This volume is also the most representative example of the gekiga style that Tatsumi perfected, the style that would go on to influence even the great Osamu Tezuka's late-career work. In an interview with Adrian Tomine (who curated the Drawn and Quarterly volumes), Tatsumi addressed a common criticism made about the sameness of his protagonists: "The character that looks identical throughout my work is, of course, different in each story, but he essentially represents my view. You could say I projected my anger about the discrimination and inequality rampant in our society through him. Do you see why my protagonists couldn't possibly be handsome?"

Rest in peace, sensei. The world is a much poorer place without you.