#nikojiru

Ok, so with Nekojiru being my apparent current obsession I couldn’t help but make some fanart!

Picking up on my last post I’ve really been sort of obsessed with everything Nekojiru this week both reading new scanlations of her work that I was able to dig up and re-reading everything that I was already familiar with as well and, hell, If you’re at all interested in checking out her work I’d recommend going to Mangadex and finding the book Nekojiru Udon - - it’s seriously worth the read.

I also watched this fascinating documentary called The Death of Nikojiru - - which somebody amazingly fan translated and posted on youtube - - which I HIGHLY recommend checking out if you’re at all curious about her or her work or just curious about the work of cartoonists in general and the impact we have on the world around us. Also, I revisited the wonderful short film Cat Soup (which is also on youtube!) which is based on her work but somewhat different in tone and was made, it seems, more as a tribute to the author than meant to be a faithful adaption. I’d seen Cat Soup back in my animation school days but being familar with the source material this time around made it much more meaningful for me.

All of this stuff is amazingly (illegally, probably!) just online for free!

Go find it!

So, I put in another order from Mandarake and got a new batch of neat/new manga books! This time around I got a weird assortment of stuff that I just wanted to have on hand for reference - - I’d been wanting to get a physical copy of something from the cartoonist Nikojiru for a little while and i chose this one based on the super cute cover alone without having any idea of what the actual book was. I believe it’s titled Nekujiru Cafeteria if a random Tumblr scanlation account can be trusted. We’ll go with it.

I’ve been a fan of Nekojiru since coming across her work in, I believe, that Comics Underground Japan book from the 90’s, then randomly sometime later stumbling across some scanlations online of her first book, Nekojiru Udon which… I really fell in love with! The comics are presented in this super cute Kawaii kinda style, and they’re hilarious, but the substance of the stories is also often horrifically cruel, nihilistic, and - - at their best - - surreal and poignant.

Sadly, just as her career was taking off she took her own life. Her comics weren’t for the faint of heart and were, frankly, fucked up in sometimes uncool ways but I think her comics also have a very unique kind of power to them that is unnerving in a way that’s quite rare. Nekojiru was a true original and I’ve never read anything quite like her work before or since. So, I kinda just want more people to be aware of her? She was a Garo artist so if you’re at all interested in the translations coming out of that scene you should definitely check her work out.

None of her comics has been officially translated aside from, i believe, two stories that appeared in english language anthologies back in the 90’s. It’s… kind of a shame? I’m really grateful to the various scanlators that have gradually pieced together a decent chunk of her work and made it available to an english audience where it otherwise wouldn’t be - - but I’d really love to see an official translation of some sort at some point. in the meantime, it’s out there if you look for it.