Kakukaku Shikajika
Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey

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If you have read or watched Bakuman., you might have learned a thing or two about manga. But while the series is quite insightful as far as the actual creating process from character design to storyboard to inking is concerned, it doesn't feel all that more realistic than other Shōnen Jump titles. After all, Ashirogi Muto make their big breakthrough while still in freaking high school. Granted, Bakuman. doesn't shy away from the truth that luck is a critical determinant on the way to publication. But in the end, it's a story fueled by the love of shōnen manga, and as such comes with a ... lot of that ferocious competitive drive, the inspiring rivalries, the showdowns.

Kakukaku Shikajika shares Bakuman.'s premise in that it's about the making of a mangaka. Taking the autobiographic approach, however, it tells a real story of detours, dead ends, and what makes someone slacken or persevere at different points in time. This is not to say that nothing was exaggerated for effect's sake. I'm sure a few things were, but the point remains that Kakukaku Shikajika is not so much an inspirational story as it a truthful account of one woman's life as an artist. There is some unpleasantness. It is neither glossed over nor is it over-dramatized. But while events are presented in a matter-of-factly fashion looking back from a more comfortable place, there is still a very tangible sense of embarrassment – shame even – as one reflects the choices of a younger self. The strength of Kakukaku Shikajika lies in its subtle emotionality, that tinge of regret running through the story that reaches a new intensity toward the end.

Higashimura Akiko is best known for Kuragehime which received both an anime as well as more recently, a live action adaptation. For Kakukaku Shikajika, she uses her real name Hayashi Akiko to retrace her drawing career beginning with her high school days and ending with the present, fitting some non-linear snippets in here and there. With one year left until graduation, Akiko has it all planned out. The goal is to attend the painting department of a prestigious arts college in Tokyo, make her debut as a shōjo mangaka somewhere along the way, use the earnings to pay off her tuition debt, and, upon college graduation, get married to famous actor Toyokawa Etsushi. What could go wrong, right? Phases of overconfidence, hitting creative blocks, poking fun at the ridiculousness of art school, doubts whether it is "worth it", your own as well as that of those around you, the stigma attached to drawing comics – there is a lot in here that the aspiring artists out there should be able to relate to.

But Kakukaku Shikajika also excels at depicting more universal struggles. The pivotal point of the story is the mentee-mentor relationship that forms between the author and Hidaka Kenzō, an eccentric old man who offers art classes in a tiny studio in a small town by the sea. Hard to get to if one does not have a car, Akiko is convinced by a friend that this is the place for her to be if she is serious about getting into arts college. Hidaka-sensei promptly informs an entitled Akiko that her sketches suck. He's the kind of man who will chew everyone out regardless of who they are, make them draw the same thing over and over and over until they get it just right, while hitting them with a bamboo sword. Nevertheless, he shows extraordinary acts of kindness from time to time, like when he carries an Akiko feigning sickness to the bus station. It is in retrospect that the author recognizes good motives also behind his strictness, and from resenting what he made her do goes to realizing that not only could he have been a more sympathetic teacher but she, too, could have been a better student. That willingness to think yourself into someone else's skin and ability to admit your own shortfalls is one of the most important aspects of maturity and in this regard, this is also a classic coming-of-age tale.

Given Kakukaku Shikajika has been fully translated, the number of people who marked it as completed came as a surprise to me. I'm writing this in hopes of being able to spark someone's interest in the manga, as it's one of the most worthwhile ones out there.

Kakukaku Shikajika (spoiler free review)
Wow, this story is exactly what manga is about, literally and in meaning.

I've always loved how close the relationship between author and viewer is, which is what ultimately made me adore manga so much... Is this my first time reading an autobiography? Maybe, my memory sucks. But wow, to be able to live this woman's life as days went by, with her present perspective on her past, her knowledge... It's truly magical; not much else to add (jk, ofc there's more).

What she put at the end of her last volume is especially original and I felt it was ... a necessity... Such a well done work of art, really.

It is the perfect length, art is kept simple and has a signification (/reason) being that way, characters are obviously real and extremely fun to follow... I mean, reading an autobiography is something very 'curious' to do (I'd be willing to use the term perverted here, even though it's nothing sexual - maybe it's more of a French term); it feels like spying into somebody's private / personal life, but on top of all of that, to be given permission to do it... Her time lapses and the timing she shifts gives the manga this very disorganized-cute 'oh I HAVE to mention THIS; oh and this too!!' type of feeling that just makes us bond more with the author.

Anyways, in case it wasn't clear enough, it felt great, and I can't not favorite this 'chef-d'oeuvre' by the clumsy, lazy, but straightforward and honest Akiko Hayashi. 10/10

Kakukaku Shikajika is an incredibly frustrating manga. There core aspect of it and message it tries to send are both touching and heartfelt but it’s bogged out by so much extraneous fluff that it almost completely ruins it to me.

KS presents itself as an autobiography of Akiko Higashimura, the mangaka who wrote this. We get a rather general view of her life, all the way from childhood to her current life. Despite this, the real focus of the manga is her relationship with her art teacher, an incredibly important person in her life that for meager fees taught her art, helped her get into an ... arts college and inspired her to move forward when she herself couldn’t. In my opinion it’s also easily the best part of it. It’s very genuine and touching, she portrays her strict but caring teacher in so much detail that it’s easy to grow attached to him yourself which makes the concluding final all the more impactful.

However if you were cut down the content leave in only that part the manga would probably be only like 2 volumes long if not less, so what else is in there? Well, not much. Aside from rare trivia about manga industry I honestly can’t find much of note in this autobiography. To me a good autobiography is one that tells you about the life of an interesting person and I can’t consider this manga author to be one of them. Her life doesn’t come off as anything so exceptional that it needs to be known and while this is incredibly subjective it’s a large part of what kept me from enjoying this manga.

Higahimura liked shoujo manga, she didn’t study too good and decided to go to an arts school. She lived a carefree live during her college years and had some very average parties and past times. She worked at a boring job as one of those telephone tech support/assistants people, I can’t remember the particulars of that but basically she just sat around accepting calls all day, during that time she also started to draw manga in her spare time. When she gathered enough money through manga she quit her job and almost made it a full time thing aside from a period of time helping out at an art class. Does any of this sound interesting to you? If so maybe you’ll be able to enjoy this far more than I did but if you didn’t I hope you’ll understand why I’m so harsh, are these events really worth devoting a huge chunk of the manga to when the rest is so much more meaningful and important? The question is entirely up to whoever reads this because I don’t think you can objectively gouge how interesting someone’s life is.

However there’s other two major downsides to this manga. Second one is about as major to me as the first if not more and it’s about how poorly Higashimura utilizes manga as a medium. Some of the most perceptive people on the planet will able to spot a small difference between manga and normal books. In case you’re not one of those people I consulted one of them to tell me what it is. Turns out manga has visuals, it has pictures, it has panels that separate the narrative into scenes and motions much like sentences, chapters and pages do in a book. Manga allows you to SEE the story and picture the things instead of writing them. Higahimura isn’t very intent on using that aspect of manga however as pages are often filled with walls of text that doesn’t carry as much value as the volume of it would lead to believe. I wish I could embed pictures into reviews cause then I’d be able to put a nice, long gallery of panels filled with just too much text that don’t tell you much and those things build up pretty quick which makes the experience reading this rather exhausting. Like goddamn she actually dedicated about 3 pages to the process they went through at a used books store to package the goods or give them a better look, it has no effect on her life or anything else for that matter, it’s just random trivia for no reason, just cause.

It doesn’t help that art is not really outstanding either. It’s serviceable for sure and it’s not hard on the eyes but there’s also a whole lot of panels that are either completely blank or have barely anything on them or just have a screen tone. For a story so centered about art and how hard the author trained for it I’d expect a bit more. One of the most glaring examples however is how she used a badly filtered photo of a cityscape as background at least 2, maybe 3 times, one of which was on a page where she talks about drawing being the only thing she’s capable of.

Third problem I have with this manga is closely tied to events that happened at the end of 4th and throughout most of 5th volume which is the only stuff I’d consider to be a spoiler when talking about this. As such I suggest you skip this long ass paragraph unless you don’t intent to read this manga. The problem I have is the tone. At the end of volume 4 the art teacher, huge part of Akiko’s life is revealed to have cancer and we learn that he has very little left to live. This is very hard news for Higashimura and a rather relatable event to people who have lost a relative or loved one, especially to cancer. As such it’s a rather tragic and grim thing to take in. This is also the most emotionally loaded part of KS cause you can feel the author’s remorse that she couldn’t do everything she could for her teacher, didn’t treat him the way she should’ve have and laments that her past self didn’t appreciate and value him as much as she should have. There’s entire pages where it feels like she blames herself for this, asking for forgiveness from her now deceased and hoping that he can hear him the same way she can hear his voice in the times she needs him. Those moments are as sweet as they’re heartbreaking cause while you get to see how strong their bond was you also get to feel her sorrow. I’ve went a little too long without saying what’s the actual problem is but now that you see how important this development is I feel like you’ll understand me better when I say that the ramblings about unimportant things and half-assed comedy annoy me even more. Do you want to honor the memory of your teacher who played a large part in you achieving your dream or do you want to fucking tell me pretty the editor you had in Tokio was and how it was totally fun to hang out with her and your other manga author friend? I’m not even kidding moments after a hearbreaking scene on the day funeral it’s followed up by this and her talking about how her husband was so nice that he insisted she moved to another city to help her achieve her dream, a gesture she returned by dating someone else and divorcing her husband shortly after. Either way, even without this particularly jarring examples it’s just shitty to think that the whole manga revolves around such an important and sad topic but instead of committing to that we get to see so much extra info that probably didn’t need to be there at all. There’s even a part where Higashimura herself admits that she didn’t give much thought to this manga and just kinda wrote it as she went without proper planning which really shows in barren panels, lack of structure and her constantly going off to talk about some unrelated rubbish.

In conclusion what did I end up with? An autobiography that recounts countless very insignificant and mundane events. A manga that’s intent on using words more than that visuals. A story that tries to pay respect to someone while actively hindering it by switching the focus to aforementioned dull things. While there’s some very good parts in this they are so heavily bogged down by the bad ones that I can’t recommend this. Judging by the scores and opinions of my friends I’m in minority here however so if you still think this manga is intriguing, give it a go, it’s not like it’s incredibly long anyways.