Abstract
This chapter discusses Hosokawa Tenten’s three-volume series, Tsure ga utsu ni narimashite, or Tsure ustu for short, published by Gentosha Bunko. Based primarily on the diary kept by her husband, Tsure, the story of Tsure ustu features Tsure’s developing depression and the author’s survival of the most challenging time with him. The chapter illustrates Hosokawa’s sharp observational skills and humorous metaphors such as utsu no nami (depression waves) and kame futon (turtle bed). 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.
Interestingly, in his memoir published 2010, Konna tsure de gomen nasai, her husband wrote that although his wife kept telling him to rest and get well first, he had no idea how aggressively she sought more work in the manga publishing market to support themselves financially (Mochizuki 2010).
- 2.
Garo is an avant-garde manga magazine that was popular in the 1970s but fell out of fashion by the mid-1980s.
- 3.
Literally meaning “manga notes,” in which the word pu (notes) implies that they are visual signs akin to musical note, manpu are commonly used signifiers of manga semiotics, drawn as visual signs, not as words. They function as metaphors and represent a character’s emotions, psychological states, and mental conditions. Manpu signs are metaphorical expressions of anger, sadness, happiness, and so on.
- 4.
According to a media impact data website, 950, 000 copies of the volume have been sold so far. Yamashita (2009) reports that the manga’s immediate sales were more than 250,000 copies.
- 5.
Although Hosokawa did not provide the names of manga, tōjisha manga on depression prior to her Tsure utsu are Fujiomi Shuko’s Seishinka ni ikō (Let’s visit a mental clinic!) published by Bungei Shinjūsha in 2002 and Minna genki ni yandeiru (Everyone’s ill lively) by Kobunsha in 2004 as well as Azuma Hideo’s Utsu utsu Hide nikki (Depressed Hideo’s Diary) published by Kadokawa Shoten in July 2006, just a few months before Hosokawa’s manga. Azuma’s story covers his hardest hit period of depression from July 2004 through February 2005 in a gag manga style. Azuma also published Shissō Nikki (Disappearance Diary) in 2005, depicting his lived experience of suicide attempts, disappearance, and alcoholism, his major work that won three major awards in Japan immediately after it was published: the Japan Association of Manga Artists Grand Award (Nihon Mangaka Kyokaisho Taishō), the Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Art Festival Manga Division Grand Award (Bunkacho Media Geijutsusai Manga Bumon Taishō), and the Tezuka Osamu Culture Award Manga Grand Award (Tezuka Osamu Bunkasho Manga Taishō).
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Okuyama, Y. (2022). Hosokawa Tenten’s Tsure utsu Series (2006–2013): A Couple’s Lived Experience of Depression. In: Tōjisha Manga. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00840-5_8
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