Abstract
This chapter features Nonami Tsuna’s eight-volume series, Husband, Akira, Has Asperger’s Syndrome, or Akira-san series for short, published by Kosumikku Shuppan. This chapter briefly introduces husband Akira’s adulthood Asperger’s syndrome (otona no asuperugā) and then focuses primarily on wife Tuna’s Cassandra syndrome, a mental health phenomenon experienced primarily by women who are trapped in a close relationship with a sufferer of Asperger’s syndrome. The chapter first provides contextual information about the series such as its target readership and the author’s background and then analyzes her artistic styles and storytelling characteristics, drawing on an interview with her and sample panels from her series.
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Notes
- 1.
Volumes 1 and 2 were published in 2011, Volume 3 in 2012, Volumes 4 and 5 in 2014, Volume 6 in 2015, Volume 7 in 2016, and Volume 8 in 2017.
- 2.
Iwanami (2017) reports the ratio of Asperger’s syndrome as five out of 1000 people and points out that there are more men than women afflicted with this neurological disorder. This gender disparity partially accounts for more “Cassandra” cases of wives than husbands. As a psychiatrist himself, Iwanami observes from clinical cases that highly intelligent men with autism spectrum disorder may have a relatively trouble-free childhood and adolescence, especially if they grow up in a supportive environment, and are likely to have a delayed diagnosis of the disorder.
- 3.
According to Sankei News (2017), Akira’s debt was reported to be three million yen, equivalent to approximately $30,000. According to a family history presented in Volume 4, Tsuna finds out about the debt before Akira is diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. The episode of debt discovery is frequently depicted as a traumatic moment for Tsuna throughout the series.
- 4.
Because English-language articles refer to a person with Asperger’s syndrome as an “Aspie” and people who do not have that condition as “neurotypical” individuals, both expressions (e.g., a wife who is not an Aspie is identified as “a neurotypical wife”) are used in this chapter. I also analyzed some manga on the topics of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in Reframing Disability in Manga (2020).
- 5.
At this point, Nonami began to work with Amano as the main editor of the Akira-san series along with a collaborative editor, Nishida Sachie. Starting with Volume 6, Amano became the sole editor of the series.
- 6.
Although receiving favorable responses from readers and being featured on NHK’s Morning Number One, Nonami has also received criticism about her depiction of Akira in the Akira-san series. For example, some customer reviews at Amazon.com accused her of depicting Asperger’s syndrome with hostility and her manga as being merely self-pity about how tough her life has been because of her husband’s condition. She believes that a fraction of Aspies felt they were victimized by her manga, asserting that it was “putting us in the wrong.” In the interview, although she defended herself by saying, “If you read [my series] carefully, you wouldn’t have come up with such a conclusion anyway,” Nonami now knows that AS tōjisha also read the series even though it targets neurotypical readers and is more careful not to hurt their feelings.
- 7.
As mentioned in this chapter, both Dr. Miyao, who diagnosed Akira with Asperger’s syndrome, and the counselor Takiguchi helped Nonami during her development of the Akira-san series. Together, Miyao and Takiguchi translated Maxine Aston’s Asperger in Love (2003) into Japanese.
- 8.
Although I am certain it is her penname (because she asked me if I wanted her to sign with her penname or real name on the interview permission form), I did not ask her how she came to use it. Unlike some of my other interviewees with unusual names (e.g., Okita Bakka, Hosokawa Tenten), Nonami Tsuna is an ordinary Japanese name, and I did not see any importance in inquiring about the origin of her penname.
- 9.
Japan’s comics encompass different genres including seinen manga, rediisu komikkusu (ladies comics), gag manga, and essay manga (also called taiken comics). Seinen manga is the genre marketed toward young adult male readers with representative manga titles being Ghost in the Shell (Kōkaku Kidōtai) created by Masamune Shirow and The Gourmet (Oishinbō 1984), a manga about cooking written by Kariya Tetsu and illustrated by Hanasaki Akira. In the 1980s, the genre of ladies comics, also called josei manga, was developed for female manga readers older than those of shōjo manga (comics aimed at youth readers).
- 10.
Essay manga is a genre developed in the 1980s in the Japanese manga industry and is also called komikku essei (comic essay) and taiken essei (experiential essay) interchangeably; during the interview, Nonami herself switched between komikku essei and taiken essei in reference to her genre. Although, other labels such as rupo manga (reportage manga, especially for its investigative content), watakushi manga (I-manga), and jitsuyō (how-to) manga exist for minor use, most frequently and interchangeably used labels are essay manga and comic essay (Kawahama 2007). Nichijō (literally “everyday”) manga is the genre of comics that tell slice-of-life stories. Similarly, taiken (experience) manga is the genre of comics that depict authors’ own lives and experiences. In our interview, Nonami used both taiken manga and essay comics interchangeably. In manga parlance, as well as in social media and advertisements nowadays, the label of essay comics (or essay manga) is prolific; therefore, I use the term essay comics hereafter in this article.
- 11.
In our interview, Amano suggested that a related label is “josei essei komikku” (women’s essay comics) and that one of its popular themes is Tabi ni ikō (“Let’s go traveling”) such as Takagi Naoko’s Hitoritabi ichinensee (Solo Traveling Freshman), a manga title published by KADOKAWA in 2006.
- 12.
As stated in that chapter, Okita Bakka, author of the Gaki no tameiki (2011) series, was inspired to write her graphic memoirs by Nonami’s Akira-san series.
- 13.
The word a-un refers to a pair of syllables, figuratively representing the beginning and ending of life, a set of inseparable truths, in Japanese Buddhist mythology (Okuyama 2015).
- 14.
It is important to clarify that her use of hattatsu shōgai (developmental disorders) in this context is misleading because, as explained in the previous chapter, hattatsu shōgai is a label for a condition comprised of Asperger’s syndrome and other disabilities. Akira has no learning disability and graduated from an elite university, nor does he have ADHD. However, hattatsu shōgai is often used interchangeably with Asperger’s syndrome as in this case.
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Okuyama, Y. (2022). Nonami Tsuna’s Akira-san Series (2011–2017): A Memoir of a “Cassandra” Wife. In: Tōjisha Manga. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00840-5_6
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