Cigarette Girl

An interesting and often touching depiction of the lives of ordinary Japanese c. 1960. There is a sense of loneliness always waiting in the wings, as these characters go through their complex efforts to find a place for themselves. It's pretty clear that the creator of these stories has great compassion for his characters.On the other hand, the drawing is pretty bad, in an especially irritating way: Creating stories about the difficult emotions felt by people trying to find a person or situation to belong tp, this artist sadly just can't draw faces very well. For a manga from the same time period, with the same deep compassion for its characters AND good-quality drawing, see "Red Snow" by Susume Katsumata. That manga collection was published by the same outfit that published this one.It is striking how different these manga from the '60s are from the highly superficial strictly-for-fun manga predominating in Japan today.

This is an utterly charming book. I've read and re-read it multiple times. It is about the aspirations of gentle souls looking for love in a complicated time as Japan was becoming a rich society after the Pacific war. The characters are conflicted and not entitled. It seems that they don't really think that they can be loved. But they find love around them as they try to survive. There is an underlying theme of complex people finding respect and compassion from unlikely sources in their lives. The compassion that the characters show to each other in their messed up lives yields a message of hope that should resonate with anyone who finds themselves caught in the daily grind of their lives, and who needs a reason to be decent and good to those around them, even when they feel put upon and in despair. It gives one hope. The art is lovely, and sometimes masterful in setting the mood. For me it was the best book of 2016.

I liked this book because it told various tales of how men and women interact in both life and love and how one should especially guard what is precious to themselves and know what they want. Although even when you stick your neck out it can turn awry!

The book was in a great condition, loved the short stories and it was kinda relatable