Shun Mizorogi is an acclaimed novelist who seems to have passed his prime. He hasn’t written a thing in years yet at his publisher’s party, he becomes infatuated with a young girl who calls herself Aki Fujino.
After the debut his new work, the police calls him in to identify a body of a girl who jumped a building. At the morgue, he sees Fujino’s body and another girl who looks exactly like her.
This is a story of a novelist. This is Utsubora.
When I first read Utsubora, it was in Kansai airport, waiting for my trip back home. The somber cover was telling that this wasn’t a cheery Asumiko title, but as soon as I inspected past the cover flap, I wondered what I was just reading into.
It was mysterious, seductive, and beautifully desperate.
As a celebration of Vertical’s licensing of Utsubora, here’s a visual sneak peek on what you might expect (and not expect). Some Utusbora images featured here are from the inside cover design and a special postcard from the Japanese edition. Still, pretty little things to lure you in.
I believe I’ve been told by one of my advisers that I shouldn’t write something that I’m obsessed about. Bias, after all, is one of the greatest sins in historical writing. It’s like a painted picture where everything is all right or all wrong and it’s hard to tell whether it’s the truth or not because of all the biases people have on it. Is it pretty? Is it ugly? Does the picture really translate the heart of what it’s trying to represent? Or are we simply translating what the painter wishes to portray and nothing more?
It’s hard to get rid of biases but when images sway you to the point of obsession then maybe, just maybe, that picture has more truth that it should hold.
It is in this obsession that I cannot forget Nakamura Asumiko. She draws a gaze that convinces me more than ever that she deserves this spotlight.