By Kanta Ishida / Yomiuri Shimbun Senior Specialist
The manga this week
Princess Maison
By Aoi Ikebe (Shogakukan)
It must be a matter of concern for young people to think about what their lives will be like when they watch the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. They might ask, what will be my job and where will I be living? Will I be married? The economic situation in Tokyo still seems quite unstable, but there are signs of an Olympics-related economic boom around the Tokyo Bay area, where sales of high-rise apartments are on the increase.
Numagoe-san is a single woman in her 20s. On her days off, she visits model apartments with the intention of buying a place of her own. Numagoe-san came to live in Tokyo right after graduating from high school, and started working at an izakaya pub for an annual salary of about ¥2.5 million. Her colleagues tell her that purchasing an apartment is just a dream, but she holds firm, saying: “No, it’s definitely not just a dream. If you want to buy a house, all you need is your own determination.”
A woman living alone in Tokyo walks all over the big city looking for an ideal place to live. And that’s all there is to the story. This manga is packed full of practical advice on do’s and don’ts when searching for the ideal home, and thus reads almost like a how-to manual.
So why does this simple manga consisting of nothing more than this somehow turn out to be quite dramatic?
When a young single woman buys a house, it is often interpreted as an unspoken “declaration” that she plans to stay single for the rest of her life. This is a deep-rooted prejudice in Japan, although not as explicit as it used to be. For this reason, a woman seeking a house in the city comes with a different sense of determination and a fastidiousness not often found in men. She is in search of a small private kingdom all to herself, lonely perhaps, but soothing. Therefore, the receptionists and salespeople of a real estate agency join Numagoe-san’s quest, following her around the city, going far beyond the requirements of their jobs.
The author, Aoi Ikebe, made her debut in 2009, and is known for her manga “Tsukuroi Tatsu Hito” (Person who sews and makes patterns), set in a dressmaking shop. Both that one and this week’s manga have a similar theme: How a woman living on her own deals with the accompanying loneliness and freedom. To address this theme, there is no better subject than “living quarters.” In this week’s manga, you will come across emotionally powerful scenes of loneliness. The women in Ikebe’s stories, however, have decided to “live right here” regardless of obstacles, and are ready to take on such feelings and even appreciate them.
Ishida is a Yomiuri Shimbun senior specialist whose areas of expertise include manga and anime.
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