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<\/p>\n\nA story about the everyday life and adventures, the “love” and “capitalism” of a girl who was born, raised and “normally” wrecked in a boring town called Tokyo\n<\/p>\n
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\nKyoko Okazaki was one of the most influential mangaka of the late eighties, but sadly a traffic accident in 1996 left her unable to work. Specialising in slice of life, psychological driven stories, Pink<\/cite> is one of her most famous works. Written and published in 1989, at the height of the Japanese Bubble, Pink<\/cite> is the story of a 22 year old office lady who moonlights as a sex worker at night to be able to afford the meat with which she feeds her pet crocodile.\n<\/p>\n \nThere’s more to Pink<\/cite> than this of course. As the opening sentence of Okazaki’s afterword reproduced above states, this is a story about love and capitalism, written at a time when Japan’s love for capitalism was at a fever pitch, just a short time before the bubble would burst. Yumi is representative of a generation of girls who came of age during the bubble and started their careers when it was still expected they would drop out in a few years to get married and have children. She actually comes from a rich family who still pay her rent. The only reason she has to have a job and work as a sex worker is to buy things and most of her money is actually spent on that pet crocodile. Which needs to be fed or it will feed on her.\n<\/p>\n \nIn some ways Pink<\/cite>, especially with Okazaki’s art, reminds me more of 19902s alt-comix cartoonists like Julie Doucet, Seth or Chester Brown than ‘regular’ manga. This could’ve been published by Fantagraphics or Drawn & Quarterly in 1995 and not look out of place. Instead it only came out in English in 2013, from Vertical, a Kodansha subsidary. As a one volume manga it’s a quick but satisfying read. The only quibble I have with the edition is that the translator is nowhere credited.<\/p>\n \nI actually only got this manga today, having ordered it because LowercaseJai’s video analysis<\/a> of it made it look interesting. Because I’m actually suffering from a nasty cold and barely able to string two sentences together, I thought I would embed the video to explain why this is such a good, interesting and important manga.\n<\/p>\n