Author: Seiichi Hayashi
Gold pollen and other stories has some interesting visuals. The tale of Gold pollen itself has a Goddess who takes form as a giant skeleton which is based on the Gashadokuro of Japanese lore. Others are just as striking due to the two tone printing process.
The stories themselves I find lackluster and I am a firm believer that the story/words within the visuals should be able to tell you almost everything you need to know. You should not require an essay to explain what just happened in the story (unless its a cultural thing. Which these are not.)
This book is split into two parts, the manga (majority) which is read in the traditional right to left, and at the other side the essays explaining the manga which are read traditional american... left to right. There is no boundary in the middle telling that this switch over has occurred and the way I figured it out was the formatting and the roman numerals that began to descend as I tried to read the (at the time) nonsense. The *back* of the book has the page that explains which format should be read how. I think this would make more sense in the center of the book betwixt. Forming the boundary between.
While a few of the images in the Gold pollen story were inspirational to look upon (as I love yokai, the things that go bump in Japan's night...) This book overall did nothing for me, and I can barely tell you what the stories were about at all.
It is chock full of symbolism that is not clear for those who have not studied Japanese culture, and to people who have not, i'm sure it comes off as READING an Andy Warhol painting.
The essays held therein are ESSENTIAL for those people, and are what I found more interesting than the actual manga.
Seiichi Hayashi is a well known artist from the 60s and 70s in Japan. His work is the Japanese portion of "pop art"
I do not think I will be reading any more of his comics, but I may look at them for visuals in the future.
ISBN: 978-1-939799-07-4
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