Anjin-san

Anjin-san is the second manga from Georges Akiyama I've read and the second one published in France and it's a pleasant surprise compared to Sunzuku no Teiou (which I already reviewed). While Georges Akiyama is mostly known for his heavily provocative manga depicting violent characters without any moral whatsoever, some of his later works take a more philosophical approach, dealing with Buddhism, spiritual enlightenment or learning how to enjoy simple things. Anjin-san belongs to this category and allows to get an idea of Akiyama's talent in this genre. As the series was commissioned by one of the managing editor from Big Comic a week before its serialization to fill in the gap because another mangaka called in sick, Anjin-san is not really thought up meaning there are some inconsistencies and the direction changes on a few occasions throughout its runtime which I'll try to detail here.

Walking alone in the countryside and surrounded by the chirping of cicadas is Anjin Onodera, an ordinary man as he likes to call himself. He's not really that ordinary as it seems he is free from any worldly desire and full of wisdom; with his calm demeanor and his shaven head, he could be mistaken as a monk.
The stories of Anjin-san aren't that innovative in themselves as they consist of Anjin-san wandering around and helping the people he encounters during his travels. It's not really a problem though because, at least in the beginning, it's compensated by a precise linework and shading that gives an impressive sense of liveliness to the wildlife as well as to the characters, the lighthearted comedy works and you can definitely feel the connection forming between Anjin-san and the people he meets, the moral that comes out at the end manages to be subtle and not pretentious religious sermons.

At some point there are 3 consecutive chapters involving supernatural elements: Anjin is suddenly able to fly around umbrella in hand like Mary Poppins, has telepathic powers and he mentions he's the descendant of Shakyamuni, it also gets him involved with Yokai. These chapters make him lose a lot of his ambiguity and the tone of these stories is completely off and denote severely with the rest who actually always left room for doubt as to who Anjin is. They're clearly a mistake but it only lasts for these 3 chapters and the fact that he is a reincarnation of Buddha is ignored afterward. It's better to straight up ignore those, some stories coming out after this play on legends and superstitions but remain vague on whether they're true or not which works much better in context.

One of my other gripes is with the of character of Kirihito who is shown as a sex maniac which also kills some of the light hearted nature of the work. In the first chapter where he appears, he's obsessively lusting after a high school girl he meets in a train, trying to look at her panties and asking her if she'd like to have sex with him and there's another where he's shown peeping in the shower and then saying that he needs to rub one out. It makes the last part of the book feel disingenuous, as it's trying to fit in a romance between him and a geisha while trying at the same time to make Kirihito a timid and candid character that is afraid of admitting his feelings. It's really weird because in most of it, he's more on the innocent side and his appearance similar to a human version of Smiley Bone makes him seem sympathetic.

The shift of focus from Anjin-san to some side characters in the later part of the book was also a letdown in my opinion, it lost some of the relaxing atmosphere it had in the beginning to go back to some of Akiyama's typical voyeuristic trademark, a lot of the pannels where Hinagiku the geisha appears is an occasion to have a close up on her ass or on her slender legs, and even though one of the theme is to learn to get past her appearance in order to learn of a more sensible and poetic part of her personality, it still felt off and brought too haphazardly to really matter.

Anjin-san is riddled with flaws and is overall quite messy most likely due to the rush of the time restriction and just like Sunzuku no Teiou, I doubt it's the best gateway to showcase the talent of Georges Akiyama. I didn't have a bad time reading this but it would have worked better if it had just kept its first idea but at least I can say the good stories are actually good and some of the full page illustrations are enough to know that Georges Akiyama has something unique to give out to the medium.