Manga Circle: Offshore Lightning
Details
★★★ SETUP DISCORD BEFORE EVENT ★★★
Manga Circle typically meets on second Sundays to discuss a selected work of manga and its international relevance. This event is suitable for attendees 18+ with any level of manga knowledge or experience. We recommend reading the entire selection beforehand – spoilers guaranteed!
Manga Circle typically meets on second Sundays to discuss a selected work of manga and its international relevance. This event is suitable for attendees 18+ with any level of manga knowledge or experience. We recommend reading the entire selection beforehand – spoilers guaranteed!
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Note we'll be doing the whole series on this, which is 3 volumes.
Offshore Lightning is an anthology of works from a recent indie manga artist in Japan named Nazuna SAITO (齋藤 なずな). (There is no equivalent anthology in Japanese to my knowledge).
Nazuna Saito began making comics late. She was in her forties when she submitted a story to a major Japanese publishing house and won an award for newcomers. She continued to work through the 1990s, until she stopped drawing to take care of her ailing parents. In her sixties, she took a job teaching drawing at Kyoto Seika University and became inspired by her talented students. When she returned to teaching, her storytelling interests had shifted. Before suffering a stroke, she drew In Captivity (2012) and Solitary Death Building (2015)―both focused on aging and death. Offshore Lightning collects Saito’s early work as well as these two recent graphic novellas.
Stories like “Buy Dog Food and Go Home” and “Offshore Lightning” focus on middle-aged men caught in a cycle of self-pity and self-reflection. Saito gently pokes fun at their anguish and self-involvement while capturing the pathos of these men as they revisit childhood friendships and lost loves. By contrast, In Captivity follows three siblings visiting their ailing mother, who is succumbing to dementia and resentful at her loss of agency. The siblings take a drive as they reckon with balancing the painful legacy of her caustic personality with attempting to honor this woman at the end of her life. Solitary Death Building documents an eccentric cast of elderly gossips as death descends upon the housing complex where they live.
Getting the Comic
Please allow for more time for this to ship given the state of things. Some books are available through your local public library - CPL for Chicago has a very extensive collection. Please let me know if there are issues with books being delayed.