Jakob's Blog

"Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" is a manga created by Hayao Miyazaki. The first thing that fascinates me is the world setting between the mix of medieval and industrial technology filled with insect monsters. Miyazaki always amazes how vast and incredible his artistic vision of his fantasy world. In addition, his incredible creative vehicles that fit in his world is what I also love about his work. The story starts off very adventurous and gives a glimpse of the danger that is taken over by these monsters and the people's struggle of survival. I have watched a lot of Miyazaki movies during my childhood and this manga reminded a lot of his classic movies like "Castle in the Sky", "Howl's Moving Castle", etc. And what they all have in common is the fusion between ancient industrialization and World War 2 technology. Back in the day, I thought all of his works were somehow connected in the same universe due to how similar their aesthetics were....

I don't know how I really feel about "Cigarette Girl". It took me a while to get into reading it just to get used to the style of Matsumoto's writing and progression. On the other hand, the context was very light-hearted and just entertaining to read. A simple slice of life of everyday life with a little humor.  However, I was not very fond of the art style. In last week's topic, I mentioned how I love Tezuka's simplistic style but with Matsumoto's style, I did not like it. I felt that his style felt bland, despite the comical moments. When I pick a certain manga, I usually judge whether I like the art style or not. I did manage to pull it through and get to understand the story a bit but I would personally not want to continue reading it.

For the second week, we read a manga called "Ayako", written by the famous Tezuka. I always knew about how Tezuka was the father of manga and how he impacted the culture with his manga comic. I read and watched "Astroboy" (English name) when I was a kid and even recently I have watched one of his classic works called "Dorororo". But I never knew he made a manga filled with such an explicit dark-themed content like "Ayako". It showed us the perspective of a dysfunctional family during the aftermath of World War 2. The art style in the manga is very much of Tezuka's work; simple and characteristic. He has a very distinctive style that you can tell it is from him by looking at the facial features and anatomy. In "Ayako", at first, it was kind of difficult to identify who the characters were because a lot of them looked very similar. But as I kept reading the plot and learn about the characters, I caught on them pretty quickly. I alre...