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Un Thé Pour Yumiko (2014)

by Fumio Obata(Favorite Author)

3.79 of 5 Votes: 4

languge

English

genre

Graphic Novels & Comics

publisher

Gallimard

review 1: I've heard a lot about this graphic novel, and it mostly lived up to the hype. The story is on the surface quite simple, about a young Japanese woman, who lives in London and has to go back to Japan because her father suddenly dies. There she is confronted with her old self and starts to think about her choices in life, all the while the funeral and all the little practical things that has to be done after a death has occurred, goes on around her. The art is, as everyone seems to have noted, absolutely gorgeous. The characters are drawn with a light touch and the subdued watercolours are perfect to match the delicate artwork. Obata also excels in using small visual devices to transmit ideas of how the characters feel and experience a specific moment. My favourite was proba... morebly when the main character leaves London and walks through the airport, partly in a daze from the message that her father had died. The environments and the people around her is reduced to a blur, accentuating her feeling of loneliness and alienation. The visual storytelling is otherwise mostly in the Western graphic novel tradition, though there are times when a distinct Asian influence can be felt (Obata is, just like the main character, a Japanese living in London), especially in the silent, more contemplative scenes. Sometimes these reminded me of the comics of Jiro Taniguchi, which is praise indeed. The story is good, though not on the level of the art. It is a subtle tale of cultural differences, of finding yourself, and reconciling with your past, and as such it is deftly told. Just so happens is a moving tale, though not a groundbreaking graphic novel. Thus my giving it four stars, and not five which the art could have deserved. I will keep my eyes on Obata, though, as there is greatness in the making here.
review 2: Lovely, elegant art--pen and ink with watercolors--perfect for the quietly contemplative story of a Japanese woman living in London, who needs to go home to Japan for a family emergency. The action is not the point of the story, but what the return trip requires of her, to think back to her spiritual roots in Japan, her father and mother. It's an old question: Can you go home again? Yes, to visit, periodically, but can you actually return there? There isn't much more to the story, in a sense… a London boyfriend is part of it, a conversation with her mother, an encounter in dreams and in returning to places she grew up with Noh drama. There's spiritual and cultural and heritage issues at stake here. And the art is gorgeous. And as reviewer Geroge Marshall pointed out, it looks quite a bit like the also watercolored Nao of Brown which is also about a Japense woman living with a boyfriend in London, and about psychic struggles of another kind. Just So Happens (what kind of title is this?) as lovely and contemplative as it is, pleas in comparison to the literally more colorful Nao, and the story is just less engaging. It's more muted, all around, but worth a look. Very few graphic novels are this gorgeous to look at, in almost every single panel. The watercolor serves the story very well. Fumio, a Japanese male living in London, does a great job with this fictional story of a woman who, like him, perhaps, needs to confront the cultural clashes, finally. Maybe all of us who have left home need to do this in our own ways. less

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