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Biography

Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter

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In the popular imagination, the yakuza are modern-day samurai, observing a rigid code of honor, decorating their bodies with elaborate tattoos, and meting out swift punishments to anyone who encroaches on their territory. When women appear in yakuza stories, they are usually unwitting victims of clan warfare or temptresses whose sexual allure threatens the established order; they are seldom leaders or soldiers in their own right.

Small wonder, then, that Shoko Tendo’s Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter (2007) caused a mild sensation in Japan when it was first published, as Tendo gave a voice to all the women who had been relegated to the margins of yakuza stories. In direct, unembellished prose, she described the devastating impact of her father’s criminal activities on his family. She cataloged her father’s drunken rages and dalliances with hostesses; recounted his subordinates’ unwanted sexual advances; and recalled the taunts and gossip that swirled around her family after her father’s incarceration.

Tendo turned an equally unsparing eye on herself, documenting her increasingly self-destructive behavior. At twelve, she joined a gang and skipped school; by her sixteenth birthday, she’d been arrested and imprisoned for fighting, and by her nineteenth birthday, she’d become addicted to speed and enmeshed in several violent relationships with married men. Only after a string of near-death experiences was Tendo able to break the cycle of abuse and addiction that had reduced her to a eighty-seven pound skeleton with scars and false teeth.

From this blunt, vivid narrative, Sean Michael Wilson and Michiru Morikawa have fashioned a curiously flat graphic memoir, Yakuza Moon: The True Story of a Gangster’s Daughter. Wilson, the script writer, hews closely to the structure of Tendo’s book, preserving the chapters and the major events of Tendo’s narrative. Yet for all his fidelity to the original, the results are uneven. Most of Tendo’s siblings and lovers, for example, are reduced from major characters to walk-on roles. To judge from Wilson and Morikawa’s adaptation, for example, Tendo’s older sister Maki was a casual acquaintance, yet in Tendo’s memoir, Maki occupied an important place in her sister’s life: first as an idol, someone Tendo emulated, then as a cautionary tale, someone Tendo feared becoming. Tendo’s other family members fare worse than Maki; readers could be excused for wondering how many siblings Tendo has, as her older brother and younger sister are mentioned only in passing late in the book, with little discussion of how their father’s lifestyle affected them.

Equally frustrating are the layouts: Yakuza Moon looks more like an illustrated novel than comics, with words carrying the burden of the storytelling and pictures playing an ancillary role. Only in Tendo’s sexual encounters does the artwork take a more prominent role; through nuanced facial expressions and body language, Morikawa speaks volumes about Tendo’s complicated relationships with men. We immediately sense which partners were bullies, and which were kind; which used physical intimidation to control Tendo, and which used emotional manipulation; and which she feared, and which she loved. There’s a frankness to these scenes that’s missing elsewhere in the book; Morikawa never shies away from depicting ugly or uncomfortable moments, but shows us what’s happening from Tendo’s point of view, rather than her partner’s.

And that, perhaps, is this graphic novel’s greatest strength: whatever compromises Wilson and Morikawa made in translating Tendo’s prose into images, the focus of the story remains squarely on Tendo. Yakuza activities — drug dealing, loansharking, beatings — take place off camera; we only see the terrible consequences, reminding us that no matter how elaborate the yakuza code of conduct may be, there’s no real honor among thieves.

YAKUZA MOON: THE TRUE STORY OF A GANGSTER’S DAUGHTER • BASED ON THE BOOK BY SHOKO TENDO, ADAPTED BY SEAN MICHAEL WILSON, ILLUSTRATED BY MICHIRO MORIKAWA • KODANSHA USA • 192 pp. • RATING: MATURE

Gandhi: A Manga Biography

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British historian Phillip Guedalla famously described biography as “a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.” Were I to locate Gandhi: A Manga Biography on Guedalla’s map, its longest borders would be to the south and west: it’s both contrived and dull, a series of historical tableaux that do little to reveal Gandhi’s true humanity.

Most of the book’s problems stem from its scope, as author Kazuki Ebine attempts to cover Gandhi’s entire life in a mere 192 pages. Ebine treats us to brief glimpses of Gandhi’s childhood, when Gandhi was first exposed to the injustices of India’s caste system; his time in England, where he studied law; his time in South Africa, where he challenged the government’s classification of Indians as second-class citizens; and his time in India, where he used strikes, boycotts, and other forms of non-violent resistance to protest English rule.

Though Ebine carefully inserts major historical figures into the narrative, none of them are treated as individuals. Some are straw men, representing unenlightened points of view, while others are apostles, converted to the cause through the power of Gandhi’s words. Even Gandhi’s wife is relegated to a minor supporting role; her primary function within the narrative is to patiently reflect on her husband’s inherent courage and goodness, rather than interact with him as a partner, friend, confidante, or lover. (“Your duty is to lead people in a right direction,” she solemnly informs Gandhi.) Ebine attempts to portray her as the one person who truly knew Gandhi, but the relentless pace of the story prevents him from showing the natural evolution of their relationship….

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Gandhi: A Manga Biography

by

British historian Phillip Guedalla famously described biography as “a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.” Were I to locate Gandhi: A Manga Biography on Guedalla’s map, its longest borders would be to the south and west: it’s both contrived and dull, a series of historical tableaux that do little to reveal Gandhi’s true humanity.

Most of the book’s problems stem from its scope, as author Kazuki Ebine attempts to cover Gandhi’s entire life in a mere 192 pages. Ebine treats us to brief glimpses of Gandhi’s childhood, when Gandhi was first exposed to the injustices of India’s caste system; his time in England, where he studied law; his time in South Africa, where he challenged the government’s classification of Indians as second-class citizens; and his time in India, where he used strikes, boycotts, and other forms of non-violent resistance to protest English rule.

Though Ebine carefully inserts major historical figures into the narrative, none of them are treated as individuals. Some are straw men, representing unenlightened points of view, while others are apostles, converted to the cause through the power of Gandhi’s words. Even Gandhi’s wife is relegated to a minor supporting role; her primary function within the narrative is to patiently reflect on her husband’s inherent courage and goodness, rather than interact with him as a partner, friend, confidante, or lover. (“Your duty is to lead people in a right direction,” she solemnly informs Gandhi.) Ebine attempts to portray her as the one person who truly knew Gandhi, but the relentless pace of the story prevents him from showing the natural evolution of their relationship.

The script is equally problematic, abounding in typos and grammatical errors. (“Pease enjoy this humble farewell party for you,” one character tells Gandhi.) The problems extend beyond mere editorial sloppiness: the dialogue would have benefited from a vigorous re-write, as it sounds more like a poorly translated Power Point presentation than natural conversation. In one crucial scene, for example, a young South African man confronts Gandhi with what amounts to an eighth grader’s gloss on the crisis in South Africa. “When I first heard your speech, I was so inspired as if you boiled in my blood!” he declares. “No one else has tried to rise up against the whites. As Indians, we have decided to fight together beyond the differences in religions.” Another character tells Gandhi, “By revoking Indians’ right to vote, they try to shut our mouth up regarding sovereignty” — an indignity up with which he will not put.

The biggest disappointment, however, is that Ebine makes such uninspired use of the comics medium. The artwork is plain and lifeless, relying too heavily on computer shortcuts and pre-fab backgrounds to create a genuine sense of place or time. Though Ebine depicts numerous violent confrontations, most of the layouts are an unvaried parade of talking heads addressing assemblies and conducting back-room negotiations. To judge from the characters’ facial expressions, these scenes are meant to be as dramatic as the brawls and massacres, but the monotony of the presentation robs these scenes of specificity and urgency.

The bottom line: readers who want an overview of Gandhi’s life and work may find this slim volume helpful, but readers hoping to move beyond what Mark Twain called the “clothes and the buttons of the man” will be sorely disappointed.

Review copy provided by Penguin Books.

GANDHI: A MANGA BIOGRAPHY • BY KAZUKI EBINE • PENGUIN BOOKS • 192 pp. • NO RATING

The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography

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Reading The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography, I was irresistibly reminded of a quip attributed to Thomas Carlyle: “A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.” Though the Dalai Lama has lead one of the most exemplary lives in recent memory, demonstrating uncommon wisdom, patience, and pragmatism in his efforts to publicize Tibet’s plight, Tetsu Saiwai’s paint-by-numbers biography reduces the Dalai Lama from a worldly religious leader to a saintly cipher.

Saiwai’s work takes its inspiration from Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama’s 1991 autobiography, and Kundun, its subsequent adaptation by Martin Scorsese. Like Kundun, The 14th Dalai Lama focuses on the first twenty-odd years of Tenzin Gyatso’s life, from 1937, when he was pronounced the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, to 1959, when he fled to Dharamsala, India, to escape escalating violence between Tibetan nationals and Chinese military forces. Many of the scenes in Saiwai’s book have analogues in Scorsese’s film: we see Tenzin Gyatso correctly identify objects that belonged to his predecessor, thus revealing himself to be the next Dalai Lama; we watch him spend time with Austrian mountaineer (and former SS officer) Heinrich Harrer, a relationship explored in the film Seven Years in Tibet; and we follow him to Beijing, where Chairman Mao exploits the Tibetan leader’s sincerity and youthful naivete for propaganda. Saiwai also offers numerous — if brief — scenes dramatizing the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, showing us both the internal disagreement within the Dalai Lama’s advisory circle and the growing unrest in the streets of Lhasa.

Readers familiar with Scorsese’s film will experience deja vu reading Saiwai’s work, as the manga feels like a shot-by-shot remake. It isn’t, of course, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that Saiwai relied too heavily on Scorsese’s movie for guidance on what events to include in the narrative.

The comparison between the film and the manga reveals another drawback to The 14th Dalai Lama: it lacks the visual drama of Kundun. One of the movie’s most arresting aspects was its cinematography; though Scorsese’s crew wasn’t allowed to film in Tibet (most of the movie was shot in Morocco), the art director collaborated with Tibetan cast members to meticulously recreate the costumes, religious ceremonies, and interiors of the Potala Palace. Almost every frame of the movie was saturated in rich color — azure skies, crimson robes, golden objects — an almost painterly affectation that suggested the radiance of a Titian canvas. Saiwai’s unadorned, grayscale artwork, by contrast, seems impoverished; there’s very little detail, even in his depictions of religious rituals, and his efforts to represent Tibet’s rugged terrain barely suggest how dry and unforgiving the landscape can be.

What Kundun and The 14th Dalai Lama share, however, is an uncritical, even devotional, attitude to their subject. In his 1997 review of the film, Roger Ebert contrasted Scorsese’s saintly portrayal of the Dalai Lama in Kundun with his all-too-human depiction of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ:

Kundun is like one of the popularized lives of the saints that Scorsese must have studied as a boy in Catholic grade school. I studied the same lives, which reduced the saints to a series of anecdotes. At the end of a typical episode, the saint says something wise, pointing out the lesson, and his listeners fall back in amazement and gratitude. The saint seems to stand above time, already knowing the answers and the outcome, consciously shaping his life as a series of parables.

In Kundun, there is rarely the sense that a living, breathing and (dare I say?) fallible human inhabits the body of the Dalai Lama. Unlike Scorsese’s portrait of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, this is not a man striving for perfection, but perfection in the shape of a man.

The same could be said for Saiwai’s work: in almost every scene, the Dalai Lama displays preternatural wisdom, sagely counseling those around him. We never see the Dalai Lama in exile, when he faced new challenges to his regime’s authority — moments that might reveal him to be a more human, more canny individual than is suggested by the carefully selected episodes from his early life. I say this not to criticize the Dalai Lama, but to recognize him as a spiritual leader with uncommon insight into the modern condition, as someone who regularly engages members of the scientific community, who intelligently uses mass media to disseminate Buddhist teaching, and who views his faith not as a set of practices to be unquestionably preserved and transmitted to future generations, but as a religion capable of evolving; can you imagine the Pope speculating that his successor might be a woman?

Like his portrayal of the Dalai Lama, Saiwai’s characterization of Chinese-Tibetan relations is devoid of nuance. Saiwai characters’ explain in simple, stark terms what Chinese “modernization” efforts meant for Tibet: devastation of natural resources, and systematic efforts to erradicate the indigenous language, agricultural practices, and religion. (In the introduction to Essential Tibetan Buddhism, Robert Thurman notes that fewer than twenty of the country’s 6,267 monasteries remain open.) Yet nowhere does Saiwai address the long and fraught relationship between China and Tibet — a serious omission, as this history helps explain why China viewed Tibet as part of its territory, and why other nations were reluctant to acknowledge Tibetan sovereignty. These historical facts in no way justify Chinese occupation of Tibet, or diminish the horror of what the Tibetan people have endured; as Thurman observes, nearly 1.3 million have perished under Chinese rule, some while performing hard labor, others for opposing the regime. A story as sad and complex as Tibet’s, however, deserves a more thoughtful treatment than it’s given in Saiwai’s book.

Given the limitations of the text, the best audience for The 14th Dalai Lama are young readers. The book’s directness and sincerity make it an engaging read, while its note of moral outrage over Chinese atrocities may prompt teens to learn more about the 1950 invasion. Readers already familiar with the conflict won’t find much here to enrich their understanding of the man or the region, though they may come away from the manga with a renewed sense of the Dalai Lama’s resilience and courage.

Review copy provided by Penguin Books.

THE 14TH DALAI LAMA: A MANGA BIOGRAPHY • BY TETSU SAIWAI • PENGUIN BOOKS • 208 pp.

The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography

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Reading The 14th Dalai Lama: A Manga Biography, I was irresistibly reminded of a quip attributed to Thomas Carlyle: “A well-written life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.” Though the Dalai Lama has lead one of the most exemplary lives in recent memory, demonstrating uncommon wisdom, patience, and pragmatism in his efforts to publicize Tibet’s plight, Tetsu Saiwai’s paint-by-numbers biography reduces the Dalai Lama from a worldly religious leader to a saintly cipher.

Saiwai’s work takes its inspiration from Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama’s 1991 autobiography, and Kundun, its subsequent adaptation by Martin Scorsese. Like Kundun, The 14th Dalai Lama focuses on the first twenty-odd years of Tenzin Gyatso’s life, from 1937, when he was pronounced the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama, to 1959, when he fled to Dharamsala, India, to escape escalating violence between Tibetan nationals and Chinese military forces. Many of the scenes in Saiwai’s book have analogues in Scorsese’s film: we see Tenzin Gyatso correctly identify objects that belonged to his predecessor, thus revealing himself to be the next Dalai Lama; we watch him spend time with Austrian mountaineer (and former SS officer) Heinrich Harrer, a relationship explored in the film Seven Years in Tibet; and we follow him to Beijing, where Chairman Mao exploits the Tibetan leader’s sincerity and youthful naivete for propaganda. Saiwai also offers numerous — if brief — scenes dramatizing the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, showing us both the internal disagreement within the Dalai Lama’s advisory circle and the growing unrest in the streets of Lhasa.

Readers familiar with Scorsese’s film will experience deja vu reading Saiwai’s work, as the manga feels like a shot-by-shot remake. It isn’t, of course, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that Saiwai relied too heavily on Scorsese’s movie for guidance on what events to include in the narrative.

The comparison between the film and the manga reveals another drawback to The 14th Dalai Lama: it lacks the visual drama of Kundun. One of the movie’s most arresting aspects was its cinematography; though Scorsese’s crew wasn’t allowed to film in Tibet (most of the movie was shot in Morocco), the art director collaborated with Tibetan cast members to meticulously recreate the costumes, religious ceremonies, and interiors of the Potala Palace. Almost every frame of the movie was saturated in rich color — azure skies, crimson robes, golden objects — an almost painterly affectation that suggested the radiance of a Titian canvas. Saiwai’s unadorned, grayscale artwork, by contrast, seems impoverished; there’s very little detail, even in his depictions of religious rituals, and his efforts to represent Tibet’s rugged terrain barely suggest how dry and unforgiving the landscape can be.

What Kundun and The 14th Dalai Lama share, however, is an uncritical, even devotional, attitude to their subject. In his 1997 review of the film, Roger Ebert contrasted Scorsese’s saintly portrayal of the Dalai Lama in Kundun with his all-too-human depiction of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ:

Kundun is like one of the popularized lives of the saints that Scorsese must have studied as a boy in Catholic grade school. I studied the same lives, which reduced the saints to a series of anecdotes. At the end of a typical episode, the saint says something wise, pointing out the lesson, and his listeners fall back in amazement and gratitude. The saint seems to stand above time, already knowing the answers and the outcome, consciously shaping his life as a series of parables.

In Kundun, there is rarely the sense that a living, breathing and (dare I say?) fallible human inhabits the body of the Dalai Lama. Unlike Scorsese’s portrait of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ, this is not a man striving for perfection, but perfection in the shape of a man.

The same could be said for Saiwai’s work: in almost every scene, the Dalai Lama displays preternatural wisdom, sagely counseling those around him. We never see the Dalai Lama in exile, when he faced new challenges to his regime’s authority — moments that might reveal him to be a more human, more canny individual than is suggested by the carefully selected episodes from his early life. I say this not to criticize the Dalai Lama, but to recognize him as a spiritual leader with uncommon insight into the modern condition, as someone who regularly engages members of the scientific community, who intelligently uses mass media to disseminate Buddhist teaching, and who views his faith not as a set of practices to be unquestionably preserved and transmitted to future generations, but as a religion capable of evolving; can you imagine the Pope speculating that his successor might be a woman?

Like his portrayal of the Dalai Lama, Saiwai’s characterization of Chinese-Tibetan relations is devoid of nuance. Saiwai characters’ explain in simple, stark terms what Chinese “modernization” efforts meant for Tibet: devastation of natural resources, and systematic efforts to erradicate the indigenous language, agricultural practices, and religion. (In the introduction to Essential Tibetan Buddhism, Robert Thurman notes that fewer than twenty of the country’s 6,267 monasteries remain open.) Yet nowhere does Saiwai address the long and fraught relationship between China and Tibet — a serious omission, as this history helps explain why China viewed Tibet as part of its territory, and why other nations were reluctant to acknowledge Tibetan sovereignty. These historical facts in no way justify Chinese occupation of Tibet, or diminish the horror of what the Tibetan people have endured; as Thurman observes, nearly 1.3 million have perished under Chinese rule, some while performing hard labor, others for opposing the regime. A story as sad and complex as Tibet’s, however, deserves a more thoughtful treatment than it’s given in Saiwai’s book.

Given the limitations of the text, the best audience for The 14th Dalai Lama are young readers. The book’s directness and sincerity make it an engaging read, while its note of moral outrage over Chinese atrocities may prompt teens to learn more about the 1950 invasion. Readers already familiar with the conflict won’t find much here to enrich their understanding of the man or the region, though they may come away from the manga with a renewed sense of the Dalai Lama’s resilience and courage.

Review copy provided by Penguin Books.

THE 14TH DALAI LAMA: A MANGA BIOGRAPHY • BY TETSU SAIWAI • PENGUIN BOOKS • 208 pp.

The Art of Osamu Tezuka

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In the introduction to The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, author Helen McCarthy argues that Tezuka’s work merits scholarly attention, but also deserves a more accessible treatment as well, one that acknowledges that Tezuka “was first and foremost a maker of popular entertainment.” Her desire to bring Tezuka’s work to a wider audience of anime and manga fans is reflected in every aspect of the book’s execution, from its organization — she divides her chapters into short, one-to-three page subsections, each generously illustrated with full-color plates — to its coffee-table book packaging.

As one might expect from such an ambitious undertaking, the results are a little uneven. The strongest chapters focus on the unique aspects of Tezuka’s work, exploring a variety of creative issues in straightforward, jargon-free language. McCarthy provides a helpful overview of Tezuka’s “star system” (a.k.a. recurring figures such as Acetylene Lamp and Zephyrus) and traces the evolution of his storytelling technique through dozens of series, debunking the notion that he “invented” cinematic comics while carefully spelling out what was innovative about his manga. McCarthy also makes a persuasive case for Astro Boy as one of the most important works in the Tezuka canon, the series that most clearly anticipated his mature style.

As a biography, however, The Art of Osamu Tezuka offers little insight into Tezuka’s personality beyond his relentless perfectionism and strong work ethic. McCarthy’s attempts to situate Tezuka’s work within the context of his life and times feel glib — a pity, as she makes some thought-provoking observations about Tezuka’s recurring use of certain motifs — especially androgyny, childhood, and disguise — that beg further elucidation.

That said, The Art of Osamu Tezuka largely succeeds in its mission to educate fans about Tezuka’s work process and artistic legacy, clarifying his place in Japanese popular culture, exploring his animated oeuvre, and introducing readers to dozens of untranslated — and sometimes obscure — series. A worthwhile addition to any serious manga reader’s library.

The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga
By Helen McCarthy
Abrams Comic Art, 272 pp.