24 Mar / I’ll Give It My All … Tomorrow (vol. 2) by Shunju Aono, English adaptation by Akemi Wegmüller
Shizuo Oguro’s definitely getting older, although not quite yet better. Having quit the corporate life at age 40 determined to become a manga artist in volume 1, Oguro is now 42 and facing creative rejection, trying to convince himself that “Great talents bloom late.”
His friend – the angry young Shuichi – is now working at a dubious bar with the usual seedy lot. Meanwhile, Oguro is still living at home with his disgusted father and worried teenage daughter. He’s sitting around in his underwear, glugging beer while glued to the TV … ironically watching a news broadcast on the current crisis of the “dramatic rise in shut-ins & slackers” among today’s youth. Oguro has his own theory: “There’s nothing wrong with the kids. The problem’s with the adults! The problem is that all the adults these kids see are pathetic!” Spoken like a true middle-aged slacker himself!
Feeling underappreciated at home, Oguro decides to venture out. His decades-old friend Miyata – divorced and lonely, barely hanging on to his necktie-and-suit career – won’t take him in: “Come on, two guys in their forties living together? What would my neighbors think?” So Oguro shacks up at young Shuichi’s, diligently filling enough manga panels to keep returning to the publishing offices with hope, especially when he meets an encouragingly sweet editor not his own. Talk about strange timing: Shuichi gets battered and fired, and ends up finding strange comfort with Oguro’s father who shares wistful, sad tales from his son’s past.
Two volumes in, Oguro has settled quite comfortably into his midlife artist’s life. Glimpses into his childhood – the devotion for his dying mother, his attempts to help his struggling father – are welcome interruptions that give Oguro enough depth, even sympathy to believe that his ‘all’ is coming in volume 3 or 4 or certainly by volume 5 …! In the meantime, his quiet determination – not to mention his changing eye fashions! – will surely keep you curious and engaged.
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2010 (United States)
OREWAMADA HONKIDASHITENAIDAKE © Shunju Aono
Original Japanese edition published by Shogakukan Inc.