Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey by Higashimura Akiko

I feel like I need to apologize to my regular readers. I have not been reading a lot of smut this year. What can I say? I’ve been stuck hanging out at the local library and this what happens…

I promise that will change.

In the meantime, in keeping with my policy of reviewing everything I’ve been reading, I present: Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, This manga is another memoir/autobiography of a mangaka, this time by the author of Princess Jellyfish.

SPOILERS

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Despite the fact that I have literally read dozens of manga about manga, both fictionalized and autobiographical, I’m still often very sucked into these kinds of stories.

I suspect that one reason is that, more often than not, I can see a hint of my own creative journey in them. For those of you who don’t already know, I make my living as a fiction writer. Not unlike becoming a mangaka, becoming a published author is a weird, highly-competitive, often heartbreaking career. A lot of people want this job, but not many of us actually make it–and those of us who do (to varying definitions of “success”)–have a lot of ups and downs… usually more of the latter than former.

In this way, I’m probably uniquely well-suited to appreciate stories like Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, so bear that in mind as you read this review. Because, honestly, in many ways, if you’ve read one, you’ve basically read them all.

Hagashimura-sensei, however, is a skilled enough storyteller to be aware that she needs to have a twist on the usual formula in order to standout. So, Kakukaku Shikajika (which literally translates as So-and-So and Such-and-Such), is framed as a kind of love letter to a teacher, Hidaka Kenzou, who she would would refer to as ‘sensei’ for the rest of her life. She gives you much of what you may have come to expect from this kind of memoir, but the story basically begins with Akiko’s introduction to Hidaka and his strange little seaside studio, and it ends with his death.

The series, I should note, is complete in 5 volumes.

And, it’s a very compelling story.

Hidaka’s devotion to fine art and, eventually, to Akiko, is as strange, brash, and honest as Hagashimura-sensei portrays him. Hidaka just a good dude, in that way that your cranky, yelling uncle can be a good dude, you know? And, kind of like with an uncle like that, Akiko doesn’t QUITE know what to do with his affection. In fact, a large part of the series is Akiko coming to terms with the fact that she lied to, ignored, and ultimately sort of mistreated a guy who was really just trying to look out for her in the best way he knew how.

Her excuse, which I think is valid, is that Akiko came of age in a time when admitting to wanting to be a mangaka was a little like me announcing I was going to write science fiction in the 1980s. Like, science fiction for me (and manga for her), at that time, was seen as something that only really maladjusted NERDS were into and no one (and especially not one’s parents or mentors) could fathom how anyone would actually make money doing such malarky.

Because of this stigma, Akiko ends up going to university for Fine Art. Her sensei, Hidaka, assumes that this is her dream and so, unwittingly, ends up pressuring her to be his kind of artist, that is to say “serious.” Eventually, she realizes that, no, she just doesn’t have the passion for that. What she really, really wants to do is the “crass” art of manga writing and drawing.

I think this sort of decision can be somewhat universal? Like, it’s the moment that some of us have had when we realize that there are jobs and there are VOCATIONS. I’ve had lots and lots of jobs (some of them, like Akiko, even after I’d broken into publishing), but writing has always been my VOCATION, my passion. In a lot of ways, this is her struggle: realizing that sometimes we’re just called to do weird things. The universe comes knocking and says, “Yes, this twisted road is the one for you.”

Once Akiko starts devoting her time and energy to this “lesser” art, she feels more and more guilty about not doing the kind of art Hidaka wanted her to. Once she starts getting published in more and more places that people read, she eventually has to confess the truth to him. Turns out, he’s more than fine with her choice, but, fundamentally, their relationship has already broken down at this point. Plus, as we all know from the six dozen other manga about manga we’ve all read, being a mangaka requires an insane (to the point of being health-damaging) amount of overtime.

The story itself, then, is bittersweet.

Even when Hidaka reaches out to her when he’s been diagnosed with lung cancer, Akiko is not able to drop everything to spend the time that’s likely needed to repair their relationship. To be fair to her, it’s not just her career at this point, that’s keeping her in Osaka, but also her child, whom she raising alone after a divorce.

As an aside? Apparently, she wrote a whole manga about this child? I say this because it’s sort of just presented in the series as matter-of-course that we know how this kid came along and how she feels about it all, but I really had no idea, not having read that particular manga (which MIGHT be Mama wa Tenparist, which apparently translates as Mama at Wit’s End, which also seems highly relatable.)

That’s the thing about Higashimura-sensei. She writes characters and is herself a character who is very relatable. Even coming to this with no interest in manga creation or publishing, I think a reader could enjoy this just as a slice-of-life story? There are moments, when Higashimura-sensei jumps around in the chronology of the narrative in a way that you can only do when the readers understands that this is Real Life, but, generally, it reads far more like a story than a lot of others.

The art is, of course, quite good. According to some source I read (possibly the Wikipedia page) several of the volumes include extra sketchbook pages to show off her finer art. I will admit that after having checked the first one out from the library, I failed to figure out how to use my new St. Paul Public Library card (I am a more regular user of a different system, Ramsey County), got frustrated, and just read the scanlations. Because I read online through the pirates, I’m not sure I saw all the art, though I may have.

At any rate, I do recommend this one, if you’re up for more memoir.