Dec 25, 2022
Kuniko Tsurita was a female pioneer of gekiga, in a time/place women were underestimated even within the more avant-garde circles, and even shojo was a genre written by men, mostly. Perhaps the first to include LGBT material into 'commercial' (I'm not using the word in terms of mainstream) comics. Indeed an intriguing character. Her personality was seen as asocial and trangressive back then: she'd be the only girl to visit jazz cafes alone; she'd wear short skirts and smoke in public, visit movie theaters alone to watch porn flicks late at night in an attempt to see other women as men did. Nobody knew much
...
about her and there are more rumors than a solid true description by the ones around her.
Her stories were all short-shorts. They are very experimental and often, in a way or another, puts herself as a character in it (before Crumb or anyone doing it). It's hard to describe her music with words, however they carry a very distinguished feel. Deconstructed slice-of-life? Some of her stories are just like a maze and they use a sort of dadaism as an additional tool to shuffle a linear storyline with inner experiences and philosophy in a way that, surprisingly, feels strange but natural enough, never pretentious. I must admit I didn't notice the complexity of some, at first.
There is a sense of surrealism in her manga works that I might say is among the closest thing you'll find to very early collage/avant short animated movies. Perhaps that's what made her work much different than not only other mangaka of the time, but still unique and distinct if you compare to any comic artist in global terms still today. Maybe due to the fact she was the most cultured artist from Garo and the early gekiga movement; she was an avid reader, also into cinema and japanese avant-garde theater (which I assume includes Terayama), music and visual arts. Despite the eternal lack of money, she'd find a way to buy books and hardcovered editions by her favorites. So here's a list of verified favorites according to her collection and quotes: Nikos Koundouros, Ingmar Bergman, Dürer, Käthe Kollwitz, Aubrey Beardsley, Goya, Tadanori Uokoo, Aquirax Uno, Mitsuhiro Kushida, other underground comics, Lautreamont, Sade, Le Clézio, Camus, Rimbaud, Sartre, Boris Vian, Becket, Jean Genet, Robbe-Grillet, Michel Butor, Queneau, and Louis Ferdinand Céline (apparently her #1). You might figure she got no recognition during her brief life, and Garo (where she published 95% of her works) readers constantly bashed on her stories. I believe an artist can't find his influence within his own specific media and movement, only. Take music artists for example, when they listen to a wider range of musical genres, they tend to do what they want with more precision; also when they know about other forms of art, they end having greater influences to produce something more original. Now do you think artists can make original music within a particular subgenre if they only listen to that specific thing they are producing? If so, it's an exception, because they don't have the original references and will end being a repetition of an already processed product. I'm talking music because it's the kind of art I work with everyday, but I think that applies to everything, and Tsurita is a proof that a wider knowledge, instead of closing herself to gekiga and underground comics solely, can provide a fertile environment for one to come up with something unique.
I won't say it's the best reading experience ever and the overall enjoyment will depend pretty much on yourself, but I definitely reccomend this to anyone looking for something smart and weird. Furthermore, the relevance (not historical only) of her work is undeniable.
(All the personal information was taken from the brazilian portuguese omnibus "A Tragédia da Princesa Rokunomiya", ed. Veneta, featuring all her works)
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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