Ayako Paperback – February 12, 2013

Ayako is an odd book. If you've read any of Tezuka's other books then you know exactly what I'm talking about. Some things just don't translate well. Aristocrats read like farmers and strange abbreviations leave you questioning whether the speech bubbles actually match the pictures. Is it British-English? Japanese-English? American-English? I don't know. Often you'll be left scratching your head wondering what the hell is going on... and its great!You see all that oddness yields an unusual kind of charm. Is it flawed? Yes. Is it a great piece of literature? No. Do I care? No. The story isn't cookie-cutter. Its rich and complicated - just like the artwork. Ayako is a challenging and rewarding read. I loved every page.You can't compare this to Watchmen, The Boys or Asterios Polyp. For as diverse (and brilliant) as those other books are, they were written on planet Earth. Ayako on the other hand was surely written on planet Mars. Its that different! It allows you to peek inside a world that's completely foreign to most of us. The world shown to us isn't Japan. Its Osamu Tezuka. If that appeals to you then buy this book. If not then look for some more men in tights.

Truly a futuristic and modern work of art. The rest of the manga world would take decades to reach this level of realism. The realism is both dark and shining in its search for truth and closure.

Ayako weighs in at exactly 700 pages, making it a book to be reckoned with. It is in fact a Book, beautiful and well-published (but probably too big to carry around casually; an e-reader edition would have been awesome, but alas). Perhaps because of the way it has been published, in a tasteful, hardcover, single-volume edition, its ad copy attempts to market it as a Novel, stating, "Ayako looms as a pinnacle of Naturalist literature in Japan with few peers even in prose, the striking heroine a potent emblem of things left unseen by the war." I read the publicity, got really excited, and had Amazon ship it to me on the day it came out. If people were comparing Ayako to Faulkner and Tolstoy, why shouldn't I read it immediately? Unfortunately, although Ayako is certainly a major accomplishment in the field of graphic novels, I am going to have to put my foot down and declare that it is not in fact on par with the best of Japanese prose. Far from it. As literature, Ayako is riddled with problems.Let's start with the storytelling. The plot is highly improbable from beginning to end, and its developments often don't make much sense if the reader begins to question them. The ending, which reeks of poetic justice, feels especially heavy handed. If one simply accepts the story as it unfolds, it's not so far-fetched that it's ridiculous, but "a pinnacle of Naturalist literature" it is not. The pacing is also highly uneven; certain key plot points happen way too quickly. This refusal to let the reader slow down and figure out what's happening is especially bad at the beginning and end of the book, which are obviously the worst places for a hastily drawn story.Another thing I expect from the novels I read are a cast of deep, multi-faceted characters, but the dramatis personae of Ayako are all one-dimensional. The Tenge patriarch and his oldest son, for example, are evil simply because they're bad people. The two most complex characters, Jiro and Shiro, merely flip between "good" and "bad" like cutout paper puppets. Ayako, who has the potential to be the most interesting character, is the most disappointing. The cover of the book says everything you need to know about her: she is young, beautiful, and mysterious, and she very much wants to have sex with you. We see her breasts, butt, thighs, and panties more than we hear her speak. Of course she is seriously psychologically damaged, but Tezuka doesn't give this the narrative weight it deserves, choosing instead to have us view her through the eyes of his male characters, who regard her as both pitiful and sexually irresistible. A "striking heroine" and a "potent emblem," indeed.Other minor characters are so cartoonish and caricatured that they don't add much of anything to the story. In fact, one might say they detract from it. Multiple clones of Popeye, Olive Oil, and Dick Tracy don't really help the story construct itself as "serious literature," and Tezuka's brief attempts at humor feel inane and misplaced. On that note, the art quality in Ayako can sometimes be shockingly bad. The cartoon character designs and the rushed artwork are much better, however, than Tezuka's occasional attempts at realism. Such drawings are, quite honestly, unlovely, and their effect on the flow of the story is akin to someone jumping onto the train tracks.Such an awkward analogy brings me to my final point of contention: the translation. I believe that dialect is something that is much more natural and naturalized in written Japanese than it is in written English. Unfortunately, the translation of Ayako not only draws unnecessary attention to itself but also robs the Tenge family of any power, dignity, tragedy, or pathos they might have originally had by making them sound like the Beverly Hillbillies. There are also strange aberrations in the speech of certain characters, such as when a character with otherwise unmarked speech suddenly starts calling people "Guv'nor" in the last quarter of the book.Any of these problem areas - narrative structure, pacing, characterization, art, translation - would potentially be a deal-breaker by itself, but together they make Ayako awkward and almost unreadable at times. Ayako is therefore a deeply flawed work, and its flaws are of the type that are simply annoying without adding any depth to the story. I am giving the book four stars, because, despite everything, it is an excellent graphic novel. If you come to it expecting a literary masterpiece on par with The Makioka Sisters or The Sound and the Fury, however, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Ayako is not high literature. It is a comic book: an engaging and thought-provoking one that was ahead of its time, but a comic book nonetheless. It is not for literary types seeking an introduction to manga, and it is not for casual manga fans seeking an introduction to Tezuka. Unless you're really sure that you want to read Ayako, warts and all, you're better off trying a Tezuka title like Buddha or Phoenix. Better yet, skip the history lesson and go straight to Naoki Urasawa, who achieves the beauty of art and novelistic scope and density of character that perhaps Tezuka could have aimed for had he not been working on a dozen projects at once.

The story is set in the post world war 2 period. You can not go wrong with this book, if you like heavy drama and misunderstandings. The content of this book is quite mature., so not recommended for kids.

I am a huge fan of Tezuka's work and find the depth he can he can put into anything quite amazing. If you are not a fan of graphic novels since you believe they are only distorted male power fantasies with superheroes saving the day I suggest you read this novel ... It is more complex and intelligent than most of the books you will ever read ... !

Osamu Tezuka, the manga godAyako has always been hailed as one of his darkest works. The art makes the characters seem grotesque and evil. The art may be a little outdated compared to what we have now but the story holds true as one of Tezukas best works.If I have any type of grope with the book it would be that I wish it was printed in traditional manga fashion.

I really liked this book. I wasn’t expecting half the stuff that went on in it so it kept me reading it. Tho I do warn people that the stuff that goes on isn’t light and cute. It’s pretty sad really. Enjoy tho!

I really wanted to enjoy this book for the masterpiece many led me to believe but the translating is soooooo distracting. I thought I'd lose my mind by the 1000th 'Big Bro Jiro.' Couldn't they leave it as ani-sama? Oh and this ain't Astro Boy. Very dark subject matter (how else would you write about a girl being lock in basement for years) and in the risk of sounding like a tumblr-teen, many graphic triggering scenes.Like someone said previously the cover is exactly who Ayako is-beautiful, sensual, and mysterious-but pretty flat. Maybe I missed the metaphor somewhere, it is worth a second read. The post-war country-side setting is very interesting and I dig Tezuka's cartoony art style juxtaposed on such a dark subject. The story is a page turner and if you like melodrama this manga is pretty much...KINDA SORTA SLIGHT SPOILER ALERT HEREJapanese All My Children meets Flowers in the Attic lol.Btw, the paperback is thick af so either read it at home or have a backpack to tote it in!