A Zoo In Winter

I didn't realize how deeply I'd been sucked into A Zoo in Winter until it was over. When I turned the final page I felt like I'd awaken from a deep, deep dream. It's about so many things... the feelings of early adulthood, artistic inspiration and drive, the founding days of manga, dreams realized, dreams deferred, but at it's heart, its a beautiful, beautiful love song.I ordered this book on a whim and didn't even realize that it was by the same creator as A Distant Neighborhood - another story well worth checking out.I don't know much about A Zoo in Winter's publisher, Ponent Mon S.L, but they treat the story with a lot of respect. It has a nice, large size, a firm, hard cover, sturdy paper, and smooth binding. I've not read the original in Japanese, but the translator did an excellent job making the dialogue flow. Nothing felt stilted.It's a shame that Jiro Taniguchi isn't well known in the states. His work has a timeless quality and is easily accessible; you don't have to be a hard core manga fan to enjoy it. Strongly recommended.

A great story of a salery man turn manga artist in the 60's . The art work is incredible the details in backgrounds and the animals is beautiful. In the end I do hope that Hamaguchi and his beloved Mariko do live out their days happily. In short A very great manga by a very great manga artist Jiro Tanaguchi.

WONDERFUL... JIRO TANIGUCHI IS THE ZEN MASTER OF MANGA, AND HE DEPICTS THE EMOTIONS,NATURE AND LIFE IN SO SIMPLE BEAUTY. I LOVE TANUGUCHI'S DETAILED STYLE HERE...SUCH A DELIGHT AND ALTERNATIVE TONE IN MANGA.

Although I love his work, I don't know much about the person that is Jiro Taniguchi. I don't know how much of "A Zoo in Winter", a story of a young manga artist finding his inspiration, is autobiographical, semi-autobiographical, or just plain fiction. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. Because true or not, "A Zoo in Winter" (a direct translation of the Japanese title "Fuyu no Dobutsuen"), is an fantastic, touching comic book.The story begins in 1966, with a young man named Hamaguchi working for a small fabric wholesaler. Hamaguchi has dreams of being a designer, but all he gets is grunt work. After the boss's daughter uses him as a cover for her elopement, Hamaguchi leaves Kyoto for Tokyo, and a job as an assistant to a popular manga artist. An assistant's life is also grunt work, coloring in whites and blacks, doing background detail and toner, but Hamaguchi finds himself drawn into the lifestyle. Like all of the assistants, Hamaguchi has aspirations of publishing his own comic, but with his uneventful life, he finds he has nothing to write about. He can drawn beautifully, but he has no experience. An artist named Kikuchi decides to show Hamaguchi the dark side of life, saying "You need to experience a whole load of stuff to write powerful manga," but it isn't until Hamaguchi meets Mariko that he finally gets his inspiration. Mariko is sick and physically weak, but her enthusiasm and love are exactly what Hamaguchi needed.Taniguchi is one of the most versatile artists I know. He can create ultra-masculine, adrenaline surging works like "The Summit of the Gods" and "The Ice Wanderer", and then with the same hand produce sensitive and romantic works like "A Distant Neighborhood". If there is a common thread to his writing it is that his stories are all firmly about human beings. Whether scaling a mountain or overcoming their own emotional captivity, Taniguchi's characters are fully-realized and emotionally connected."A Zoo in Winter" falls firmly in the "sensitive and romantic" camp. Whether Hamaguchi is a personal avatar or not, he represents the fear of reaching out for a dream with full knowledge that the end result is most likely failure. While at the fabric factory, he has no initiative of his own, and his life is directed by those around him. When circumstances land him in Tokyo working as a manga assistant, his first impulse is to just fall into a comfortable zone, without taking risks or following his own dreams. He watches others reach out and fail, before understanding that it is the trying, not the succeeding, that is important. And especially with Mariko, whose poor health almost guarantees a bitter ending to their romance, Hamaguchi refuses to give up, taking what time he has with her.His art, of course, is phenomenal. Taniguchi has a distinct, realistic style that is still recognizable as "manga." He forgoes any impressionism, and creates ridiculously detailed backgrounds for his characters to move in. There is a reason why Taniguchi is a multiple-Eisner award nominee.At 231 pages, "A Zoo in Winter" is long enough to tell a complete story, but still leave us hanging on the final page wanting more. The ballad of Hamaguchi and Mariko doesn't quite finish, and it is up to the reader to speculate on whether their ending is happy or melancholy. On the final page Hamaguchi musses that it would be nice if real life were as easy to plot out and conclude as a manga, but that real life is more complicated. I wonder if that is the message Taniguchi wanted to send as well.

Quiet, interesting lightly fictionalized look back at the beginning of Tanaguchi's career in manga in Tokyo in the 1960s. It's not plot-driven, but rather a blend of character, environment, and nostalgia, and both my spouse and I were blown away with it. One of those books that doesn't hit you over the head with being "about" something while you're reading it, but you're left thinking about it long after you close the book. If you're into new adult / coming-of-age / people finding themselves themes, this is definitely one you should check out. It's been recently reprinted, so it's not a billion dollars to get a hold of anymore, yay!

Zoo no inverno é um mangá metalinguistico, ou melhor, um mangá sobre ser artista e em último caso, ser um mangaká.Seguimos a história de Hamaguchi (praticamante um pseudônimo para Taniguchi) e a perseguição do seu sonho de viver da arte. Em seu primeiro capitulo, que leva o nome da obra, Hamaguchi trabalha em uma empresa têxtil e tenta emplacar suas criações de estampas nos produtos da empresa. Porém, logo no fim do primeiro capítulo, sua vida toma outra rumo e ele se vê indo para Tóquio, onde conhece um mangaká famoso e se torna um de seus assistentes, e redespertando seu amor pelos mangás.Muito da obra é baseada na própria vida de Taniguchi, o final da década de 60 foi quando o autor virou assistente de mangakás, igual nosso protagonista, e quando começou a tentar emplacar sua própria série. Trata se de um mangá repleto de momentos de reflexão, anseios e dúvidas, com uma arte estupenda (como sempre é de costume do autor).Zoo no inverno é muito mais do que aparenta, uma verdadeira ode aos mangás e o que significa sonhar com amor e paixão. Uma grande obra.

As obras de Taniguchi são um tanto diversificadas, mas um elemento é constante em suas histórias: a capacidade de emocionar o leitor.Essa sensibilidade aflorada salta aos olhos, p.ex., em "O Homem que Passeia", onde ele consegue ver beleza e poesia nos pequenos detalhes da vida cotidiana, conferindo colorido à situações aparentemente despretensiosas ou mesmo banais.Em "Zoo no Inverno", uma de suas criações mais pessoais e passionais, Taniguchi vai ainda mais longe, compartilhando conosco sua intimidade e confessando medos, fraquezas, angústias, sonhos e paixões.Em essência, "Zoo no Inverno" é uma comovente história de amor. O autor nos ensina que talento e esforço nem sempre são suficientes para concretizar os sonhos ou superar os obstáculos.É no olhar, no sorriso e no incentivo da pessoa amada que se encontra a verdadeira fonte de inspiração e de motivação para seguir adiante.Uma leitura que vai amolecer até os corações mais empedernidos.

Meu quadrinho preferido do autor até então, por um motivo bem simples. Diferente de "O homem que passeia" e "Gourmet Solitário", "Zoo no inverno" não é composto de contos, sendo uma única história. E, apesar do que o nome da obra pode dar a entender, "Zoo no inverno" não se passa no zoológico, pelo menos não na sua maior parte, sendo o lugar apenas o ponto de partida para alguns acontecimentos do enredo. É um mangá de Taniguchi com sua melhores características, somado com uma carga maior de relacionamentos interpessoais e com um pouco menos de contemplação.A certa altura, "Zoo no inverno" lembra bastante "Vida à deriva", de Yoshihiro Tatsumi, ao retratar o começo da carreira de um artista de mangá - o mangaká, passagem que é inspirada em sua própria trajetória. É interessante ver como artistas diferentes trabalham o tema em suas próprias obras.Pelo fato de não ter um caráter episódico, e finalizar com um desfecho mais tradicional, acredito que "Zoo no inverno" é uma boa indicação para quem não tem o hábito de ler quadrinhos e/ou mangás.Obs: A editora Devir tem por prática editorial substituir as onomatopeias originais dos mangás por versões traduzidas, o que incomoda alguns leitores, portanto, fica o aviso para os incautos.

Good description of the Japanese way of life, while good art. A real page turning had to put it down again and again.Jim Wiinholt

A história não tem ação. Ela é dinâmica,mas dentro da sua proposta de contemplação.Por ser semiautobiografica pode não agradar a todos os públicosEu, pelo menos, gostei muito deste mangá. Inclusive indico o Gourmet Solitário e o Homem que Passeia, também do mesmo autor