A review by balletbookworm
The Push Man and Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi

4.0

I like the style, very graphic and visual with less dialogue than I was expecting. The themes are also not what I expected. Even though the characters are working class there's a constant idea that women are just valuable only as sex objects with little agency of their own (and in several stories obsession with a specific woman drives the man to do terrible things). Now, what I know about Japanese culture and manga can fit in a teacup (no pun intended) so I'm probably missing a much larger picture of 1960s Japan. (And the author, in an interview at the end of the book, mentions that the themes here are not representative of his personality - I recently read Yasunari Kanabata's Thousand Cranes and it also had a similar preoccupation about women and sex although in a slightly more educated set of characters). But a very striking book.

Note: first manga I've ever read (thanks Jake). I suppose I'll try a few more since this one didn't kill me.