My most common lament about anime, manga and Japanese popular culture generally has been the language barrier. I’ve tried to learn Japanese but I was only able to make so much headway, and with my spare time at an even greater premium now it’s not likely I’ll ever develop the skill needed to read manga without a translator. A great many titles I know I want to delve into — Azumi, for instance, or Yoshiharu Tsuge’s works, or the endless one-shots I’ve collected along the way — are more or less off-limits for now. In this regard I have, and most likely always will, depend on the kindness of strangers.
The good news is the strangers are getting a little kinder with each passing year. Not just manga publishers like Dark Horse taking intelligent risks with titles like Hiroki Endo’s Tanpenshu, but Drawn & Quarterly bringing out Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work, or Vertical, Inc. digging through most of Osamu Tezuka’s back catalog. Now joining their ranks are graphic-novel greats Fantagraphics, and their debut release in this category is a gorgeously-produced best-of collection from shojo manga creator Moto Hagio, A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. (Even apart from the content, the book is a keeper — a large-format hardback, in color, one of the best productions of its kind since something like the domestic printing of Seiichi Hayashi’s Red-Colored Elegy.)










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