The Promise and Other Stories

The stories collected in this volume were all published in the legendary Garo magazine. This avant-garde publication, following in the footsteps of gekiga, the movement founded in 1957 by Yoshihiro Tatsumi to break with tradition children's manga, opened the genre to adulthood. Founded in 1964, it accompanied throughout the 60s and 70s the protesting youth who saw in it a form of contestation of the establishment. Kusunoki was in his twenties when he published these stories, in a Japan, which was barely recovering from its defeat and the consequences of the Second World War, World War. His stories manage to create a link between Japan traditional and post-war society marked by censorship, the cult of work, the erosion of traditions and virulent anti-Americanism. Like Susumu Katsumata (Red Snow, Cornelius), he focuses on describing life daily life of the people, while infusing it with a more epic dimension. Through genres as varied as the traditional Japanese tale, the urban chronicle or the samurai story, it dissects the ambiguity of human relationships. Putting lay bare the feelings that unite people, the reasons why they attract each other and the misunderstandings that separate them, Kusunoki manages, through a clear style, to express what is not… An immense author that he is urgent to rediscover and celebrate.