Tabi
The Journey of Life

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Ever since I found Ran and the Grey World years ago I've had a predilection for Aki Irie's works. It's not that her stories are impeccable or developed to perfection, but her approach has a particular inspiring warmth.

With these short stories, it was particularly easy to tell why: she takes any sort of premise that occurs to her, and just draws it. It's a great example of how you don't need to an impeccable idea to write a story that tells something, and works. Most of these are random free-spirited tales, each with an entirely different tone and pace. None feel obliged to keep ... a structure of opening, development and ending: Irie writes whatever she wants to write (something that came to her going for a walk, or visiting a museum, as she describes later) and the resulting stories are somehow like vibrant, little experiences, when read.

I also love how with a few simple pen strokes she gets full features and expressions. No doubt the drawing is also her forte, particularly with these short stories that need to be told in only a few vignettes.

It was particularly heartwarming that, in the closing pages, she writes that she loves to draw great things based on small stories, and also that she hoped <i>Tabi</i> was a means to discover something beautiful in the midst of the daily hustle. That's exactly what this manga achieves.