Feb 21, 2019
Mariko Kikuchi also known by the name of Kaoru Ozawa is specialized in making report-type manga in which she represented herself living in extreme conditions.
She traveled and lived in very harsh conditions to then put it in form through manga, she for example tried living as a homeless person, ate insects and went to aokigahara, the suicide forest. It is here the first time that she writes with her real name, that is, to tell the story of her childhood and how she had to deal with an alcoholic father and a mother who was part of a sect and how she had trouble having
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a stable life as an adult.
We all know of this tradition where salarymen have to drink with their colleagues after work in order to release stress and often going overboard, ending in an awful state. Her father was not only drinking for work but constantly be it with the neighbors, his friends or on his own, he was in a perpetual state of drunkenness that they almost never saw him sober. His family was only sharing with him moments of embarrassment, shame and anguish when they had to go out with him outside to see the cherry tree for example, this ruined all occasions of ever spending joyful moments with him.
Her father often invited his friend to play mahjong, smoke and drink while her mother was only there to cook and serve them. Her and her sister had to cover their ears to not hear the coarse laugh of these men. As a teenager she was pretending not to see the grief of her mother as to protect herself and not suffer even more, leading to even greater distress when her mother commits suicide, leaving her two daughters all alone with him and responsible for keeping their house in order, she also becomes ashamed of not having done anything to help her.
As a child she would not see how dangerous the situation of her father was and this refusal not to see the truth will persist, to the point that when she sees a report about child living with alcoholic parents, she doesn’t realize how wring her own situation is. She had to suffer alone and take this upon herself as her sister was not old understand to understand what was happening. They had to become grown up too soon and never had time to make the most of their youth and enjoy life
As if this constant pressure was not enough, they also suffered from all the adults around them blaming them for not understanding her father drinking, resulting in forcing her to hide her distress. This is not only a work about the danger of alcohol but also deals about how the japanese society tries to justify it. In fact everyone around her kept telling her that it was only normal for an adult to drink or blamed her and her mother for the excessive consumption her father had. It also tackles subjects such as domestic violence and the peer pressure that she had to put up with: a woman must marry and have kids, a pressure that slowly destroyed her from the inside. She felt culpability from not reaching a stable life, debt, withdrawal, not being able to love a member of your family, all of this, not being able to conform to society, to not be normal.
All of this led her into thinking that a man who wasn’t drinking was not normal and ended up dating the first man who wanted to get married to her. Everything would be fine if he didn’t have the exact same problem as her father and didn’t constantly abuse her for years. Him being a possessive and manipulative person, she had to be available at anytime of the day and stay on the phone for hours, he also blamed her for the comportment of her father. This toxic relationship will go quite far, going to him beating her and her not reacting thinking it’s all her fault. She will end up realizing that she became attracted to men that have the same flaws as her father and can’t fight it.
It will take her a long time to realize that it was her father who was the main responsible of all the problems she had in her life
She even discovers years later a new side to her sister as she thought she was carefree and happy when she also suffered greatly from this situation and is as affected if not more.This is also one of the thing that mariko had to live up with, not realizing the pain of others when it should have been obvious.
The last part of this manga is about her life while her father is sick and his death the remorse of not having been there for him, to not having tried enough to make him stop drinking. The death of a parent often leads us to reconsider our life and our judgements not having her father in the center of her life broke this vicious circle and led her to finally move on.
Her minimalistic art fits very well, characters are expressive, everyone can identify to her and project their own life unto hers and understand her pain perfectly. It is also more effective as she does not go into pathos, into trying to make us sad, she delivers her story in very simple way. She manages to balance the raw harshness of what she writes with a very cute art that puts this cruelness even more visible and impactful
Even to this day, she admits herself that she is still far from having surpassed these traumatisms and is still in the process of reconstruction.
This autobiography was probably also an outlet for mariko kikuchi to feel better by releasing all her emotions and all her life into a single book.
You to bakemono is not in any way an over dramatic shot, it is really the author taking a step back and showing us what led her to become the way she is and all the mistakes that she made, how all emotional balance was completely disrupted.
Her finally using her real name shows a lot about her and her past, she felt guilty for all that happened around her and it’s a part of her life she wanted to stay hidden and forget about, we understand she still hasn’t healed from it.
Her work as a mangaka helped her realizes her situation and see it from another perspective, being praised for her works helped her regain enough self-confidence to see what she inflicted to herself unconsciously
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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