PART 37 of 52 ONESHOTS in 52 WEEKS
浅野いにおの『きのこたけのこ』 “Kinoko Takenoko” by ASANO Inio
Inio Asano is an award-winning author of seinen manga, whose dramatic works often focus on struggling youth and coming-of-age stories. He is known largely for the series Goodnight Punpun and Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, which are particularly distinctive in their presentation, with Asano juxtaposing whimsical and exaggerated characters with darkly dramatic scenarios and settings.
The author began his career in the late 1990s with a four-page gag manga, but quickly shifted his focus with a run of oneshots which focused on more robust topics, including romance and philosophy. These loosely connected short stories, published between 2002 and 2004, became Asano’s first serial work, and were later collected in a two volume anthology titled What a Wonderful World.
Short stories have remained a constant throughout Asano’s career, with the author penning more than thirty oneshots over twenty years. This week, I’m looking at the author’s unique short work Kinoko Takenoko, which was published in Shogakukan’s Monthly Spirits magazine in 2014. The oneshot dramatises a rivalry between two Japanese confectionery products, which are represented as warring factions.
Set in a fictional world where the Bamboo and Mushroom factions are in conflict, Kinoko Takenoko follows an unnamed character on the Mushroom side, whose cynical monologue laments the senselessness of war. The oneshot provides several snapshots from civilian and military perspectives, featuring opportunistic, pacifist and pugnacious characters.
In English, the oneshot’s title translates to ‘Mushroom Bamboo Shoot,’ with the basis of the manga derived from a real-life rivalry spurred by Japanese confectionery company Meiji. In the 1970s, the company debuted two similar confectionery products; one resembles a mushroom (Kinoko no Yama) and the other resembles a bamboo shoot (Takenoko no Sato). People tend to favour one over the other, with Meiji frequently holding popularity contests between the two products.
The oneshot is particularly short at just 28 pages, but Asano provides quite a memorable picture of crisis and calamity. His focus on a youthful cynic pushed to a bleak extreme is an engaging angle, while the other characters enrich the setting with additional slants, from student militants and objectors, to children simply wondering if they’ll get the day off school, and others looking to eke a living for themselves if nothing else. The author utilises the form well, fashioning a scenario which feels lived-in and well-defined, despite its compactness.
Inio Asano’s character designs—some of which wouldn’t look out of place in a gag manga—are eccentric and charming. The style is visually appealing and contrasts strikingly with the manga’s mature themes, but its implementation isn’t as innovative as in some of the author’s serial work. As a whole, the artwork is undoubtedly impressive, with crisp detail and compelling environments, but compared to the artist’s most well-known manga, Kinoko Takenoko is certainly a more modest entry.
Kinoko Takenoko is a memorable short work from Inio Asano, who is very adept at dramatising unusual and quirky concepts. It’s notable as a bit of a precursor to the author’s manga Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction, which debuted two months after the oneshot. Dead Dead Demon’s takes much of the basis of Kinoko Takenoko—the youthful characters, disputing factions and a looming war, as well as the exaggerated designs—and uses the longer form to stage a wonderfully elaborate and beautifully stylised story.
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Morning, Roo 