Assistants: Yuichi Watanabe, Takashi Kondo
Translation: JN Productions
Touch-up/Letters: Annaliese Christman
Design: Amy Martin
It’s no longer an original observation to point out that the boundaries between adolescence and adulthood have become hopelessly blurred. Stories about contemporary youth working through the disappointment arising from quashed dreams, failed relationships, unsatisfying career trajectories, while wondering when they’ll grow up, are familiar territory, especially to an audience living in developed nations. Nowadays, personal crisis is simply to be anticipated with every major turning point. I blame the economy for our present melancholia. At any rate, when Solanin was first published in english back in 2008 (the year I began this blog), there weren’t any manga around that closely resembled it. Most manga being translated at the time could probably be stereotyped as being focused on the more juvenile end of the emotional spectrum: fantasies featuring rebellious boys showing off their cool fighting moves or doe-eyed girls immersed in maudlin romance. But manga readers were already growing up, and publishers had to keep up by dipping into a greater range of works from Japan. Solanin can be excruciatingly beautiful in its down-to-earth realism. It’s a manga that will most likely resonate with anyone who's ever been accused of being a slacker, a dreamer, a snowflake, or a man-child. At over 400 pages, it’s an extended meditation on youth struggling with the contradictions of a modern society that pays lip service to self-expression while demanding its members tamp down on all that nonsense and grit it out. Making his official english language debut, creator Inio Asano doesn’t attempt to find an answer. He just keeps it intimate and personal with a small cast.
Solanin arrived when Naruto and Fruits Basket were still defining the manga aesthetic to many western fans. Asano’s art (with help from his credited assistants Yuichi Watanabe and Takashi Kondo) could still be recognized as manga in appearance, but certainly less kawaii in execution. His youthful cast often look uncomfortable inhabiting their own bodies. They haven’t yet completely shed their baby fat, or the gangly forms of their teenage years. And there’s the half-assed facial hair found on the male characters serving as a constant reminder of oncoming maturity still delayed. The visuals are not only as detailed as anything found in manga, but realistic to the point that they’re clearly being photo referenced. The overall results are not exactly attractive. Sometimes the cluttered backgrounds can even be a little distracting to the action taking place in the foreground. But the Tokyo of Solanin definitely feels lived-in: an actual city haphazardly composed of narrow and overcrowded streets.
Asano’s meticulous approach is designed to convey the mundane existence of Meiko Inoue, a twenty something women stuck in a dead end job working as one of Japan’s countless office ladies. She cohabits her riverside apartment with her boyfriend Naruo Taneda, whom she calls Taneda. He’s also ensnared in his own thankless work routine he couldn't care less about. Meiko sees in her colleagues nothing but moral compromise. “Adults are made of ‘who cares?'... As long as I’m not caught, who cares?... They pay well here, so who cares?” When she finally can’t stand being surrounded by their mediocrity, she quits. Meiko’s now free to pursue her passions, only to discover she has no clue as what to do with all her free time. Her unemployed status makes Taneda the primary breadwinner of the household, something he gradually comes to resent. Asano’s careful tracking of the growing fiction in their relationship is one of the highlights of the manga. Taneda says all the right things wanted from a supportive boyfriend when Meiko announces her decision to quit. But the subtle sadness expressed by his face and body tells an entirely different story. Taneda fails to meet Meiko’s eyes whenever they begin to have a heartfelt conversation. Before long, his inability to communicate his true feelings causes Taneda to fall into a funk.
But Taneda finds likeminded company in the form of his friends Rip and Kato. The three had formed a rock band during their time in college, and they continue to maintain it as a hobby of sorts. In the meantime, Rip and Kato have each settled into their own respective rut. Neither of them believe they’ll ever achieve anything of great consequence with the band. However, it’s not long before Meiko begins to prod them into taking it more seriously. This sets up the principal thematic conflict: whether it’s better to reach for your dreams even when they’re obviously unrealistic. Or is it better to coast through life knowing your limitations?
Asano spends the first half of Solanin slowly ramping up the tension between his young quartet. It’s delightful low-key stuff built around elliptical conversations that first seem to be heading somewhere, only to veer off when something new catches their attention. The little arguments that Meiko and Taneda have are the kind of fights which stem when people circle around the main topic they’ve been studiously avoiding. These many interactions work because of the expressiveness of Asano’s character designs. But there’s a huge plot twist that occurs at the very middle of the story which slightly alters the tone of the manga. What began as a quiet slice-of-life narrative suddenly becomes more dependent on noticeable dramatic beats to propel it towards a slightly more conventional destination. The kind expected of any emotional account of the performing artist trying to make it big in the industry. It isn’t an unambiguously happy conclusion for Meiko and company. Far from it. But Solanin sacrifices some of its initial realism to arrive at it.
For all that, the manga’s climactic concert scene is a thing of beauty. Comics as a visual medium can’t reproduce the aural qualities of music. But Asano manages to capture the mood of the concert through a forceful series of wordless panels. Witnessing their kinetic release as the band powers through with their instruments is immensely gratifying since it comes after many pages of rehearsal sessions that seem to go nowhere. It’s the one glorious moment of clarity they've been seeking, knowing that the complications of their lives will inevitably overtake them again.
