PART 18 of 52 ONESHOTS in 52 WEEKS
谷口ジローの『松華樓』 “Shokaro” by TANIGUCHI Jiro
Jiro Taniguchi was an immense talent within the world of manga, with a career spanning well over three decades. He authored mature stories within a wide breadth of genres, and would often alternate between wilderness and metropolitan settings. Many of his works depicted nature and animals (one of his most famous is the mountaineering series The Summit of the Gods, which was recently adapted to film), but equally he told stories of city dwellers and also had a love of hard-boiled fiction.
My introduction to the author was his 2004 anthology The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories, which collects six of his numerous oneshots. Among them are two homages to novelist Jack London, a story about a hunter seeking vengeance on a bear, a tale of a marine biologist who becomes fascinated by stories of a whale graveyard, an account of a young boy being sent to live with his relatives by the coast, and a semi-autobiographical piece about a fledgling manga author.
I have since read and loved many in Jiro Taniguchi’s bibliography, which is abundant in oneshot and single volume stories, but wanted to take a trip back to The Ice Wanderer this week, casting an eye on Shokaro, the aforementioned semi-autobiographical oneshot, which was originally published in Shogakukan’s Big Comic magazine in 1998.
Set in 1970, a year before Jiro Taniguchi’s debut at the age of 24, a young Taniguchi narrates his time spent living as a tenant in a lively apartment building known as The House of the Pine Flowers. As a former brothel, the building has an unusual layout and the young author, who fills his days working on his pre-debut manga Chloroform, is surrounded by all manner of memorable neighbours.
What immediately sets Jiro Taniguchi apart is his precise and detailed artwork, and his great eye for perspective. He illustrates environments which are wholly impressive in their authenticity, with pages brought to life by meticulous backgrounds and panels abundant in all manner of minute detail. In Shokaro, author Taniguchi walks readers through the apartment building, which is weathered by cracks and dents, with plentiful shoes settled outside each door, signifying the occupants inside. Quickly, the setting takes on much character of its own.
The oneshot is just over 30 pages in length and tells of an early adulthood period likely recognisable to many. The young Taniguchi embraces a relatively lonely independence, working, renting, and focusing on his true passion when he can. It captures with great earnestness the nomad energy of early adulthood, characterised by a somewhat wistful routine.
Taniguchi spends a little over a year living in The House of the Pine Flowers, but it leaves a large impression on him. His room is lit by a small skylight, which he stares out of as he lies in bed each night. The aloneness, he says, is a bit like a trance, which goes on to inspire one of his earliest manga stories. The oneshot relates several stimuli—from the sound of eating, to a neighbourly encounter—which linger, however routine or ordinary they may be, in strangely profound ways.
While his artwork is invariably stunning, it is Taniguchi’s storytelling, which is poetic and literary, which always has me eagerly returning to his impressive catalogue. Shokaro encapsulates this quality expertly, relating youth, melancholy, and memory through a reflective and relatable lens. Jiro Taniguchi sadly passed away in 2017 at 69 years old, but leaves behind an exceptional library, which includes several other semi-autobiographical works, such as the oneshots Raising a Dog and Caring for a Cat, and the single-volume stories A Journal of My Father and A Zoo in Winter. Personal favourites of mine include The Walking Man and A Distant Neighbourhood.
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Morning, Roo 