Farewell, Daisy Review

We are consuming. (Thumbelina) We are being consumed.

In 2007 Jun Mayuzuki won the Bronze prize in the 1st Gold Tiara Awards for the title story Farewell, Daisy (the final manga in this collection) which has led to her creation of award-winning series, notably After the Rain and Kowloon Generic Romance. These short stories, dating from 2007 to 2017, offer a fascinating glimpse of this gifted mangaka trying out different art styles and exploring many facets of women’s lives with barbed humour.

Everyday (2008) opens the collection and introduces us to Yohsuke as he’s fired from his job and drowns his sorrows in a bar. He picks up the gorgeous Emily and they go home together which is where he discovers that Emily is a man, or ‘female-ish’ as she puts it. However, Emily stays around and because she enjoys cooking and cleaning (her dream since childhood has been to be ‘a wife’) everything settles down to a peaceful, almost married kind of existence for the two of them. Until Emily learns that the man she was in love with is getting married and asks Yohsuke to attend the wedding in her stead and punch the groom for her – for fifty thousand yen!

Liver and Garlic Chives (2012) introduces us to the dynamic Kyouko Sakagami (27), holding forth at a crowded event promoting her book Name Your Vagina. But the self-assured persona that she projects to sell her books hides the fact that she has a ‘complex about sex’ and has never once climaxed during sex with a man. So why is she suddenly fascinated by a neighbour, a forty-something man who lives on the floor below? Kudou (yes, the same name as the main male protagonist in Kowloon Generic Romance but there the likeness ends) is a soapland doorman. The fascination becomes an obsession until she fakes a plumbing problem in her bathroom that causes a leak in his apartment below – and he arrives to sort it out with the inevitable consequences.

We first meet Saiko Imawano (almost certainly neuro-spicy in today’s terminology) as she starts work at a video rental store in three-part Refreshing Psychedelic (2009-11). Unprepossessing, except for the eyepatch over her right eye, she’s shown the ropes by good-looking Natsukawa but is completely overwhelmed by his presence. When, later on, his girlfriend appears…

Thumbelina (2017) is the most recent story and is drawn in the art style we’ve come to recognize from the mangaka’s recent work. It shows us (without judging) the life of a compulsive smartphone addict who is sharing her life through a series of photos. Except this life isn’t working out; she’s making Instagrammable food for her boyfriend who treats her badly, but she keeps living the lie online, just to get plenty of likes. The arrival of a new and very unconventional neighbour – a female artist who makes plaster casts of human bodies – shakes up her view of the world and, most importantly, herself. The creation of a piece of sculpture using her for a whole-body cast sparks a sudden awakening inside her. (Is the mangaka referencing Oyayubihime, a Japanese horror/drama TV movie (1999) based on Thumbelina, as well as the original Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale?)

Yuuki is working as a waitress in a Pachinko Parlour and – maybe to amuse herself? – posts teasing photos of herself online in two-part Connected Night (2014). She’s living with a boorish boyfriend who takes her for granted and is planning to break up with him but hasn’t quite got around to doing so. However, she’s fascinated by a woman, forty-something, whom she spots waiting outside in the cold, day after day. Why is she there? Is she a prostitute hoping to pick up clients? Yuuki intervenes when she sees a man hassling her, and rushes over, calling out “Mom!”. The two women get talking and Yuuki’s way of thinking about her life begins to change.

Farewell Daisy (2008) is all about Daisy, a young witch who goes to Earth to attend high school but instantly falls for Kenji in her class. Her mother is appalled and sends her to the underworld for three months as punishment (there’s no phone signal there) where she stays with a red ogre called Anthony and starts a beauty parlour for ogres. She and Kenji have sworn eternal love but when Daisy gets back to Earth…

This collection is a fascinating look into Jun Mayuzuki’s early work. The cover art shows us the Jun Mayuzuki art style we’re used to from After the Rain and Kowloon Generic Romance but what I found so surprising is that there are very few signs of her current signature look except for Thumbelina. These stories are interesting in that Mayuzuki seems to be trying out different art and narrative styles to see what suits the story she’s telling best.

And the subject matter? These stories are all about women and their life experiences; they’re bawdy, bitter, sexually explicit, frank and funny. It’s hard not to discern the influence of Moyoco Anno (Happy Mania, and In Clothes Called Fat), especially in the art for Farewell Daisy which brings Sugar Sugar Rune to mind (witches and magic wands). Most of the men in these women’s lives don’t come across in a good light at all although Yohsuke in Everyday shows that he’s capable of changing for the better after meeting Emily. But in Thumbelina there’s foreshadowing of Reiko Kujirai’s determination in Kowloon Generic Romance to be her absolute self as her artist neighbour tells her straight up, “I won’t accept anything other than the real, genuine you!”

Translation for Yen Press is by the very dependable Amanda Haley with lettering of many different kinds to bring these stories to vivid life by Abigail Blackman. There’s one page of translation notes that are very helpful, especially for cultural references; for example, the store where Saiko starts work in Refreshing Psychedelic is called ‘Yatsuta’ which refers to a real-life video rental and bookstore chain called ‘Tsutaya’. The book has four glossy colour pages inside at the front and a single ‘thank you/special thanks’ image of Kyouko Sagami from Jun Mayuzuki dated 2018.

This volume is a must-read for readers who already love Jun Mayuzuki’s work – but also warmly recommended for anyone interested in discovering a collection of one-shots about women in present-day Japan, wittily written and drawn, yet leaving much to think about.

Read a free 30-page preview on the publisher’s site here.

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press. 

© Jun Mayuzuki