チルヒ

CHIRUHI

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
1
RELEASE
March 24, 2009
CHAPTERS
6

DESCRIPTION

In the title piece, Chiruhi, Orin is a prostitute who works on a boat near the seashore. She falls in love with a young hairdresser, who is one of her customers, even though she knows it is an impossible love. This collection consists of six historical short stories which tragicomically depict people trying to do their best in the city of Edo throughout the seasons.

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

ShibuyaConfidential
60/100
Recommended to lovers of Japanese literature first and foremost.
Written by Haruka Kawachi, author of Natsuyuki Rendezvous (a work that didn't really excite me in its anime version), Chiruhi is most likely set in the Edo period (the period between 1603 and 1868), with a collection of six bitter-sweet-mysterious, but actually more bitter, stories centred around women who live their existential condition in a cruel society, between lost loves, broken childhoods, ghosts, vengeance and memories of withered flowers.

These stories might not appeal to a reader accustomed to the strong characterization of archetypes, but they certainly attract those who are passionate about literature as the flow is very similar to the short stories of the late Meiji, and early Tasho.

In some passages, it seems that the author is letting her characters enunciate Seryuu, (they look like one to me, even though with the English translation I am not sure) a widespread practice, as you know, was poeticizing among protagonists of novels or stories as a form of communicating emotions (take the poetic poses and messages of Genji Monogatari), and this, in my opinion, gives an elevation to this Chiruhi.

It is a simple manga, but it leaves a strong sense of melancholy because it is frighteningly real on one side and historical on the other.

There are various beautiful references to Japanese culture such as the figure of Kagama, a professional homosexual (generally from Kabuki theatre) and other terms well translated and briefly explained throughout the manga. The art style is pretty simple and reminds me of a polished version of Ukiyo-e wood tablets, with faces and characters mixing up with each other without anyone standing up.
Slims are the figures, as the facial expressions denote admiration for Kyoko Okazaki in a unique Edo-pop version by Haruka Kawachi.

The references to old Japan are delightful and the atmosphere of the general dialogues is very sombre and crepuscular far from those excessive vitriolic dialogues typical of pop manga literature where the character has to enunciate vividly everything or the character is a character, we feel the atmosphere and the emotional spectrum of real people. Children are children, prostitutes are disillusioned, and no one is at fault.

It just happens, like life itself, it just happens...

A work recommended to lovers of Japanese literature first and foremost and then to comics fans as it may have those peculiarities above that fall out of a mainstream appeal.

As an additional read, I may suggest Pink by Kyoko Okazaki which is more comprehensive and linear.
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