Chichi no Koyomi
A Journal of My Father

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I have no experience writing, and I do not even know English (so I’ll have to use the Google translator), but in this case I feel compelled to review this title, who do not have English translation is quite unknown in the page (at least compared to other works of Taniguchi as "Haruka na Machi e"). With that clarified, let's start.
The story it’s about Yoichi, an ordinary man who lives in Tokyo with his wife, who one day receives the news that his father, who did not visit since ten years, has died. For him his father was always a virtual unknown, with which he ... was never intimate much because he felt resentment towards him due to divorce with his mother. In his funeral, through memories of his childhood and family and friends stories, is becoming an increasingly complex picture of his father and his relationship with his mother, things about which he knew next to nothing
Like works as Yasujiro Ozu’s Toko Story, even coming from a particular time and in a country like Japan, details completely unrelated to the reader, provokes an unexpected connection with the experiences of the characters. It is a must for fans of the author and manga in general.

A really solid work by Taniguchi, which should be no surprise.

JOURNAL OF MY FATHER uses a funeral as the setting for a man's exploration of his father's memory. It's a conventional premise, but Taniguchi uses it to good effect. Yoichi and his family are depicted with as much rawness as a Japanese funeral allows, and for the most part the stiffness of the proceedings contributes to the overall work. Yoichi is essentially estranged from his family, and a funeral can't mend those fences.

The most successful parts of the manga come near the end when Yoichi really comes to terms with what his estrangement ... has meant for his father. While it's built on the foundation of the first half, I think that this section needed more room to breathe specifically because it's the most emotionally affecting. It seems like the story moves a little too quickly from point A to point B here.

The story of a man who has been in conflict with his father for a long time and who at the latter's funeral begins to remember his figure and begins to have regrets, the story takes place both in the present and in the past, in the town of Tottori, the author's birthplace, this comic is a way for him to apologize for his long absence. In the comics, the father's story is a story like many in the post-war period, with the occupation of the Americans, the job of a barber, the building of a family, with the big problem of a fire, the ... reconstruction of the job, the wife's infidelity, the divorce and remarry after a short time. But this story is seen from the eyes of the son who, since his mother left, has no longer been able to interact with his father because he blamed him for the divorce, and by moving to Tokyo he found an excuse to escape having to inherit the salon from barber as his father and uncle would like. Many things didn't go down to me very much in the concepts said by the characters, which I also found in reality, for example the wife who is unfaithful to her husband because he only thinks about work, which I absolutely don't agree with or when with everything that happened with the protagonist, his sister says she doesn't want her son to go to the university of Tokyo because she fears she won't see him anymore, these are things that irritate me and not a little. In short, in dad's time it evokes memories and sensations even for those who still have parents but above all for the country you leave when you decide to leave, when you return to the place where you left, we will remember all the people we met during the life and the country that yes and so loved or hated and we will realize that it has not changed at all. The drawing is always sublime and realistic at the highest level and the style is always a graphic novel.
I give a 7 to the story and an 8 to the drawings.