I’ll Give It My All… Tomorrow 1

Shunju Aono – Viz – 2010 – 3+ volumes

I don’t exactly know what I was expecting from this, but the synopsis about a middle-aged man who wants to be a manga artist coupled with the title of the series made me think I’d be in for a treat.

Have you read Solanin?  If you haven’t, you really should.  Inio Asano is great for portraying very realistic struggles with identity, death, and purpose.  This series is like Solanin, except less triumphant.  The main character has less of a drive to succeed than the girl had at the end of Solanin.  I’ll Give It My All is also more of a comedy, except very often it can be just as depressing as Solanin when real life intrudes on Shizuo’s fantasy.

It starts off a lot like Solanin, with 41-year-old Shizuo quitting his boring office job simply because he grew weary of doing the same thing every day for 20 years.  He lives with a pessimistic father and supportive daughter, and it doesn’t take him very long at all to decide that being a manga artist is definitely what he wants to do with the rest of his life.  He doesn’t seem to give the decision much thought at all, but once he’s made it, for as flaky as he is otherwise, he sticks to it like glue.

The first chapter is a little more optimistic than I was expecting, with Shizuo given an incentive to continue on the very last page.  It deteriorates after that.  Shizuo never doubts his ability or desire to become a manga artist, but he finds himself in frequent “slumps” that require him to be outside playing baseball with children, out drinking with his friends all night, enjoying pornography, or ladies, or wasting money and time in other ways.  The formula for the chapters are pretty simple, with Shizuo working himself into a problem (usually of his own making) and finding inspiration in the few words offered by his daughter, so that the chapter finishes on a high note.

The tone… is strange.  Shizuo is clearly not a “winner.”  No commentary is offered for what he thinks of situations, or what other characters think of what he’s saying, and a lot of what’s going on is Shizuo offering advice to others that is just so bad that the pause is there while everyone digests what’s going on.  Usually the advice is offered alongside a terrible habit Shizuo himself has, for instance the lecture he gives one of his co-workers about picking up ladies after the co-worker lets him know he should bathe more frequently, or the litany of advice he offers a young man who is struggling to find a job.

Shizuo does draw manga, it’s just not very good.  One of the highlights is the nicest editor on earth who breaks the bad news to Shizuo in such a way that Shizuo thinks himself a genius (for instance, after submitting a horror story, a romance, and a bancho story, the editor tells him he is a master of all genres and simply needs to find his perfect subject matter).  He also occasionally helps people, such as in the last story.  But… it’s never clear what other people think of Shizuo, if they’re taking him seriously.  Probably they aren’t, but the ambiguity makes the situation so awkward that it’s hard not to relate to Shizuo, or at least feel a little embarrassed for him.  The awkwardness is what pushes this firmly into the realm of slice-of-life story, unlikely and creepy though it may be.

The other thing I liked about it is the relationship Shizuo has with his teenage daughter.  He knows nothing about her and can barely say two words to her, but she has no problem smiling and humoring her father, and is his biggest fan when it comes to his work.  It’s always her that puts him back on track.  She’s a wonderful character, and her positive influence is probably one of the key things that make the chapters work, because otherwise there would be an awful lot of doom and gloom.

I liked it.  It’s not an addictive read, but I loved the portrayal of the middle-aged under-achiever, and I liked the way he stuck to his dream while simultaneously failing at it.  For all its funny jokes, it struck me as pretty realistic.  Part of me wonders if it’s semi-autobiographical since I noticed that Shizuo’s first short story has the same title as Aono’s debut work.  It’s worth checking out though, and I would recommend giving it a look at the Ikki site.  Don’t sweat it if you can’t start from the beginning, the chapters do a pretty good job of standing by themselves.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.