Hayashi Seiichi (Edited and translated by Ryan Holmberg)
Published by: Breakdown Press, 2014
It is 1969, and famed artist Hayashi Seiichi has decided that his comics, having flirted with pop, need some heart and soul. He turns to the moody graphics of old kashihon gekiga and the sentiments of Japanese enka blues.
“Because of you, my long life will be withered with frost. This fading shadow of an empty shell…our love.”
So laments the heartbroken bar hostess of Flowering Harbour, one of the classic works of the legendary alternative manga magazine Garo.
Flowering Harbour was printed by Risograph at Victory Press in London.
The production of this book was supported by the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures.
Ryan Holmberg is an art and comics historian. After receiving his PhD in Japanese Art History from Yale University in 2007, he taught at the University of Chicago, City University of New York, and the University of Southern California. He is a frequent contributor to Art in America, Artforum, Yishu, and The Comics Journal. He has edited and translated a number of historically important Japanese comics, amongst them Tezuka Osamu’s The Mysterious Underground Men (PictureBox 2014), winner of the 2014 Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material: Asia.