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

Persepolis (6? Points)

  This story was extremely insightful. It’s best to read as an American since we are so ill-informed of other countries, especially Middle Eastern destinations. It was fascinating to learn about Persian culture and how it evolved just throughout Marjane’s life alone. By the end of the war, I was still a little confused how some women could be all dolled up with their hair visible and makeup on, but majorly had to stick to the regime other times. I think when Marjane met them they were hanging out in private, but I’m unsure. Either way, learning about the mental toll it took on our protagonist to have to mold yourself to fit in with different cultures at just 14 is unimaginable. I wasn’t surprised to see her indulge herself in drugs and get caught in depression later, it was such a hard thing for her to have to go through. Additionally, there’s A TON of political talk that I wasn’t fully understanding but got the gist for the most part. And yes, there’s also a lot I did not agree wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Tits and Clits (3 Points)

 I never thought I would be typing out that sentence as the title to one of my assignments in my senior year of college. Anyway, what a hell of a ride that was. Admittedly I did look for one of the most obscene titles I could read and review for this week. I have no problem with NSFW artwork or comics, so it was not actually obscene as I thought it would be (though it definitely was up there). Mostly what I thought of these comics was that there was some kind of weird innocence behind them. Like the women that wrote them usually either wrote them to portray some kind of fantasy, to make a commentary on how simple some men are, or to share their sexual experiences, none of which I can really deem 'obscene' or 'offensive'. Possibly to men, but I would doubt even that.  The only jarring things I saw were how normal the mentions of rape were, which is pretty sad because I think it's only JUST starting to become a thing that is taken more seriously in society. Ironically...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angel's Hill (5)

 I wasn't sure how I felt about this comic when I started reading it considering it starts with Luna being executed and put into slavery... But it really grew on me the more I read. I started identifying themes and morals the story was trying to tell. Luna is the epitome of a kind person. She doesn't let Byouma die even whens he was trying to kill her for the entirety of the comic. She thinks everyone is a person with a life and soul and no one should be hurt if she can help it. I really appreciate the character exposition and growth we see from each of the characters as well. Eiji just wants to live his own life and resents his family in the beginning but once their father is assassinated and his mother is left to live in a much more humble home, he is reminded of how much family means to him. This goes for the entirety of the Kusuhara family- each of them is reminded what family really means by the end of the story, and despite them having next to nothing- it doesn't matt...
Post a Comment
Read more