The walking man

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The walking man ( Japanese 歩 く ひ と , Aruku hito ) is a manga by the Japanese draftsman Jirō Taniguchi from 1990. The 152-page work is considered one of the artist's most important.

content

In 18 short chapters, the experiences of a young man who moved into their own house in the suburbs with his wife are described. On walks he discovers the surroundings, the parks and the narrow streets, and has everyday experiences. After his wife found a dog and they both took him in, the man usually takes him for walks.

The name of the man, his profession or the place of action is never known.

publication

The manga was published in Japan in 1990 and 1991 in the manga magazine Weekly Morning published by Shogakukan . This then published the chapter in a tankōbon .

The first publication of the work outside of Japan was in France in 1995 by the Casterman publishing house under the title L'Homme qui marche . Translations into Italian, Spanish and English followed, among other things. In 2009 the volume was published in German by Carlsen Verlag .

Style and analysis

The manga contains relatively few speech bubbles. The work is in an unusually detailed and realistic drawing style for the manga, which is strongly influenced by the European Ligne claire . According to Andreas Platthaus , however, the situations described reveal the Japanese roots of Taniguchi's art. He compares the work with the picture cycle Tsuki hyakushi by the ukiyo-e artist Yonejiro Owariya better known as Tsukioka / Taiso Yoshitoshi from the 19th century. The cycle shows 100 different aspects of the moon, whereby the moon is rarely the main subject of the individual pictures. Likewise, Taniguchi shows the aspects of the walking man and thus continues the tradition of ukiyo-e.

Together with the work Dreams of Happiness , which was published at the same time, The Walking Man also demonstrates happiness as the essence of human life. The protagonist gets involved with his surroundings and gradually gets to know them. Platthaus also describes the manga as a “disguised autobiography” ; the stories clearly show personal experiences of the artist.

Meaning and reception

The Walking Man was Taniguchi's first manga to be published outside of Japan.

According to Andreas Platthaus, the story is a grandiose fusion of content and form. Paul Gravett writes of a "swinging clear line" and thoughtful silence in a "collection of silent images" . At Comic Radio Show one speaks of a special viewing and reading pleasure.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e epilogue to The Walking Man , by Andreas Platthaus, Carlsen Verlag, 2009.
  2. ↑ a b M.Hüster: Jiro Taniguchi: The walking man. Comic Radio Show, March 20, 2009, accessed May 23, 2009 .
  3. ↑ a b Andreas Platthaus : Transfigured Strangers - Jirō Taniguchi and the seductive power of western individualism . In: German Film Institute - DIF / German Film Museum & Museum of Applied Arts (ed.): Ga-netchû! The Manga Anime Syndrome . Henschel Verlag, 2008.
  4. ^ Paul Gravett : Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics , p. 125. Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004.

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