The Brush that Lives Between the Coins and the Clouds George Akiyama---1971

The Brush that Lives Between the Coins and the Clouds George Akiyama---1971
George Akiyama is a cartoonist who has continued to stare at desire, hypocrisy, and human weakness. His masterpiece "Zengeba," set against the backdrop of Japan's late period of rapid economic growth, unflinchingly depicts the reality that money is the key to human relationships and happiness. The process by which the protagonist, driven by poverty, craves money and climbs to the top by any means necessary reflects a society distorted by the shadow of economic growth, and shocked readers with a mixture of discomfort and sympathy.

On the other hand, "Floating Clouds" is a tale of humanity and wit centering on the protagonist, Kumo, who lives a life of idleness in an inn town in Edo (present-day Tokyo). Although ostensibly a period drama, the irony of today's overly competitive society and normative consciousness lurks throughout the story, and it has become a long-running serial that demonstrates the subtlety of a way of life in which one can pass the day to day.

Around 1971, Japan was undergoing a period of change: the student movement was in retreat, pollution and overwork deaths were becoming social problems, and television commercialism was accelerating. In the manga world, gekiga and seinen (young men's) magazines were on the rise, and there was a demand for realistic depictions of society for adults. Akiyama was part of this trend, and he established a style that combined extreme depictions of violence with detailed psychological descriptions, rejecting simple good versus evil.

While his contemporary Go Nagai exaggerated sex and violence with abandon, Takao Saito depicted realistic social mechanisms and the way of life of professionals, and Shotaro Ishimori pursued allegory with science fiction and shape-shifting heroes, Akiyama focused on money and human karma and weaved together laughter and sorrow on the pages of his works. Akiyama's writing style reached the realm of "human comedy," vividly conveying the contradictions of the times while at the same time leaving room for the reader to think.