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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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The Walking Man
The Walking Man is for the most part about walking and
looking. The main character, who remains nameless throughout the 18
vignettes contained in the book, is a youngish married Japanese man
who in the first story has just moved into a new house in a new town
(subtly conveyed by a few boxes in the background and the way he is
surprised to see a bird that a bird watcher tells him is the most
common bird in the area). The man must have some kind of job--we see
him dressed in his suit, carrying a briefcase, coming home--but there
is never any indication of what he does. The book solely focuses on
his walks, often beginning or ending at his house.
In one sense, "nothing" really happens in this book: he walks, he
looks, he reads, he exchanges a few words, he takes a bath, it rains,
he buys cake or a paper balloon, he walks his dog, he helps a group
of boys retrieve their model airplane from a tree. On the other hand,
the world happens in this book: plants, weather, animals, people. In
an age where zooming from one place to another is de rigeur, the
simple act of walking and looking becomes almost revolutionary.
Taniguchi skillfully takes us along with the "walking man" and makes
us look at his surroundings. Maybe next time we won't have to be lead
along.
The walking man is endlessly curious, observative, and kind. His
dog uncovers a seashell in the backyard, and he no sooner goes to the
library to look up the shell. He gets off a bus early after spotting
a tree covered hill at the end of a small cross street, then climbs
the hill to its top. He helps an old lady find her way and squeezes
through the narrowest alley I've ever seen (he has to turn sideways).
Throughout he is looking and smiling and appreciating the world. Very
few words are exchanged in the book. Other than to his wife, he
rarely says more than a word or two to people. When engaged in
conversation he lets the other person do the talking. He listens.
The artwork is in a realist manga style. It is quite reminiscent
of Katsuhiro Otomo's art (perhaps Taniguchi was an influence or there
is some other mutual influence in manga history). Backgrounds are
quite detailed, while characters are slightly more cartoony with
large chins and eyes somewhere between the "big eyed" manga style and
the small eyed American style.
The pages are organized in what Benoit Peeters would
call the rhetorical style: tall panels are used for trees, wide
panels for scenic vistas, smaller wider panels for the man's head
looking off panel at something, single panel pages for slowed down
moments that last forever (he takes a hot bath after being stuck in
the cold rain in two single panel pages). The organization is mostly
invisible because it is so integrated into the story.
Taniguchi is accomplished at composing his panels and pages. One
brilliant example is a set of four panels on page 17 that are
smoothly integrated with each other (see the accompanying image (only
part of the page). In the first panel notice the curving road and
guard rail along the bridge where the man and his dog are walking.
The top end of the curve leads off the right side to the next panel
where the line is continued by the guardrail at a different angle
that curves into the walking man as he looks down at a mosiac in the
street. The bottom curve of the road in the first panel leads down to
the third panel in the group. The road line becomes the one end of
the mosaic in close-up. This line of the road/edge of the mosaic
moves into the fourth panel (to the right of the mosaic panel) and
becomes the shoreline of the river below the bridge where we see a
bird taking off. Words do not do the smooth layout justice.
This is an excellent book, one I will gladly place on my small
manga shelf with the works of Osamu Tezuka (Phoenix,
Buddha, Adolf), Miyazaki's Nausicaa, and the
similarly themed Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. I'm looking forward
to more works from Taniguchi (the publisher has already volume 1of
his Time of Botchan collaboration, with
vollume 2 on the way soon) and more translations from Fanfare/Ponent
Mon (see Rob Vollmar's highly favorable
reviews of some of their other publications).
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I just got back from a walk to the post office down the street. As
I walked, thinking about this book, I realized I hadn't really looked
at my new neighborhood (been here about a month now). I've walked the
streets and been to different buildings, but I've not really looked
around.
The realist backgrounds are a great strength in this book. While
the story made me think a bit of John Porcellino's comics, with the
interest in looking, nature, and discovery, the backgrounds made a
great difference. When Taniguchi shows his characters interested in
something we see that something in amazing detail, in Porcellino's
case the art does not allow that sense of looking. On the other hand
Porcellino's work also uses more narration which conveys attitude,
emotion, thoughts. Taniguchi makes us guess the walking man's
attitudes and thoughts and gives us only his wonder and curiosity
with the world. It is much more about the gaze. Numerous scenes are
set up with a panel of the man looking off into the distance and then
a panel of the thing on which he has focused his attention. This is
particularly prevalent in the earlier parts of the book, as if
Taniguchi is teaching us to look with the character.