The Runaway (Manga)
The outlier ( Japanese 失踪 日記 , Shissō Nikki , literally disappearance diary ) is a manga by the Japanese draftsman Hideo Azuma from 2005. The work was awarded, among other things, the Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize.
The manga deals autobiographically with the time-outs in the artist's life. The work does not always remain serious, but rather is kept in the style of a funny comic.
action
Hideo Azuma runs in 1989 for his work and his home away to suicide to commit. The suicide attempt fails, and so he decides to live as a homeless person in order to leave his old life behind and start a new one. When he got used to his new way of life, he was recognized by a policeman he knew and urged to return to his old life.
Azuma disappears again in 1992 and takes up his life as a vagabond again, but this quickly comes back to him. He rents an apartment and works as a gas pipe fitter. The police pick him up again. Back in normal everyday life, he decides to continue working as a gas pipe fitter, but resumes his work as a cartoonist.
In the spring of 1998, Azuma, who had problems with alcohol addiction, was forced to go into rehab. In the rehabilitation clinic, he met numerous patients whose addictions are far worse.
style
Despite the serious subject, the work is kept in the funny style and contains a lot of self-irony. The drawings are kept simple and simple, there is no realism. Azuma himself said: "This manga takes a positive world view and is funny in style, because people can't stand too much realism." The plot jumps between individual sections of his life.
publication
The publisher East Press published the manga in 2005 in Japan.
Ponent Mon published the anthology as Diario de una Desaparición in November 2006 in Spain and plans under the title Disappearance Diary , a publication of The outlier in English. In January 2007, Kana published a French translation of the manga under the title Journal d'une disparition . The manga was published in German by Schreiber und Leser in autumn 2007.
reception
Azuma received the 2005 Grand Prize in the Manga category at the Japan Media Arts Festival and the Prize of the Association of Japanese Cartoonists, and in 2006 the main prize at the Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize and the Seiun Prize for the best non-fictional work.
The work was described as brave as it processed a little glorious part of the artist's life. The plot is captivating, but sometimes a bit monotonous and there is hardly any tension. The depictions of the rehab clinic and alcohol addiction are funny, instructive and also frightening. The manga is characterized by "deeply sad slapstick" , comparable to Charlie Chaplin . History is often characterized as that of a person who wants to escape the pressures of society and becomes estranged from his family. Stefan Pannor writes at satt.org that Der Ausreißer describes one of the "worst conceivable declines in the western, work and performance-oriented culture" . Only through the "gigantic height of fall from serious experience and comical portrayal" is the book bearable. According to Thomas Dräger from Parnass magazine, the manga is "extremely pleasant" to read, but it will not reach the masses.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Martin Höche from Comic Radio Show
- ↑ a b Christian Maiwald in OX # 74 October / November 2007
- ↑ Information on the Japan Media Arts Festival 2005 ( Memento from May 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Winner of the Osamu Tezuka Culture Award on Anime News Network
- ↑ Christopher End in AnimaniA 10/2007
- ↑ Zuzanna Jabukowski at goon magazine ( memento from October 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (text must be marked because black font on black background)
- ↑ Stefan Pannor at satt.org
- ↑ Thomas Dräger at parnass