Skip to main content

The Arrival by Shaun Tan (3 Points)

This beautiful piece captures the uncertainty of those who've experienced immigration face, while not being entirely negative. It shows the humanity others are capable of giving despite there being a language barrier. It gives hope to those who are going into personally uncharted territory that there will always be kindess.

We follow a man leaving behind his wife and child to move to a foreign place in hopes of a better future for his family. Along the way we meet some characters that help our main hero through his transition into a foreign land. In the end, his family is finally reunited with him and they are able to be together in this new place.

What I loved about this piece is that it was abstracting a very real subject. Even in the beginning of the book where the dedications go, it says "for my parents." You can tell just from the drawings that there was a lot of love put into this piece. It was personal, but abstracted enough so that anyone could understand and apply the underlying analogy to themselves. It was incredible to see this alien world littered with cute creatures that rival Earth's own birds, cats, and dogs. A world with almost science-fantasy scenery. Not only was the scenery different, but the way people went about their days was also fantastical. Our main character arrived in a elevator that came from the sky. That's so cool?? 

I think it's the interactions between the characters though that make this such a beautiful story. Each person our protagonist meets has their own story to tell. Through the abstraction Tan uses, we can tell that the giants overrunning and burning one of the side character's countries is perhaps alluding to tyranny of the government they were facing in real life. But even after these characters share their backstories, they're always willing to help out our protagonist. This world is rich with love that humanity has stored in each in every one of us, and it's gorgeous.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Suicide Boy (6)

This one was something. I saw the title of it and said, "Alright what the hell is this." I don't know how I feel about this comic! I liked it, but also I felt weird reading it because it was subtly horny and you could TELL. Which is very confusing especially since it's supposed to be talking about serious stuff like self-harm and depression. Like I would be reading it and enjoying it's strange dark humor, but then there would be random really suggestive stuff happening to the main character who is a suicidal TEENAGER and I would feel super gross. Somehow I read the entire thing through to it's up-to-date issue, because I really wanted the main character to get better and you know, have character development with the friends he made, but there's something off here. I literally just googled the title and suggestive pictures of the main character came up, I don't know how I avoided this until right now since whatever I saw was much less obvious, but there...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nanking (6 Points)

  This piece was beautifully illustrated and written, and really knew how to pack a punch right to the heart-strings. The way they constructed the narrative of the little girl being the one to tie all of these people together is brilliantly done. Sadly, the story itself is not really an uplifting one.  I wasn't aware of what happened to other countries during WWII. When they taught us in school they spoke about only the bombing of Pearl Harbor and told us that the holocaust was the worst thing to happen in human history. But getting to know the finer details of things is really what makes us educated and I had no idea what was happening in the Eastern countries. I'm touched that at the end of Nanking, the woman says she forgave the Japanese for what happened because nothing good could come out of war anyway. But she had lost everything and everyone she had in that awful siege of Nanking. They may have took all she had that was left, but thankfully she had people who were there...
Post a Comment
Read more

Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun (6)

(I gave it 6 points because it's pretty long and I'm up to date on it.) This is my current fan favorite manga. My friend texted me and was like "It's really cute you should read it." And honestly, I usually don't just go read stuff like this. Then I was up to date within 3 days and couldn't stop thinking about it. It's about a young girl named Nene Yashiro who tries to summon a ghost who lives in a bathroom stall so she can ask for help with her love-life. To give more context, they're in a school that is known for it's seven supernatural mysteries that are located in different places throughout it, so it's a well-known that you shouldn't do certain things in certain parts of the school. Anyways, she goes to the stall and knocks on it asking for "Hanako-san" which is a Japanese urban legend about a dead girl who haunts the bathrooms. The ghost who comes out ends up being a boy (hence Hanako-kun) around the same age as her and ...
Post a Comment
Read more