Manga Friday: With the Light
This time, we’re focusing entirely on one series, and specifically the two volumes of it published in English so far.
"Is Wheeler slacking off?" ask the punters.
No, he is not – each of these books is well over 500 pages, so I’m actually reviewing more manga, by weight, than usual this week.
With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child, Vols. 1 & 2
By Keiko Tobe
Yen Press, 2007-2008, $14.99 each
Every so often, those of us who love comics get a great object lesson with which to confront our friends who are not so open-minded: something that’s not only excellent as a comic, but challenges people’s preconceptions of what comics can do.
Maus was the biggest one, but, since then, we’ve had projects like Blankets, From Hell, The Cartoon History of the Universe and Bone to show off to people who think “comics can’t do that!”
And now there’s With the Light, as well. I’m not saying that it’s as good as those other books – it’s well-crafted, and good at what it sets out to do, but isn’t quite on that level – but it’s another great example of comics story-telling applied to new material.
With the Light is a work of fiction, but it’s based closely on true stories. (And it also shows what a really full comics-publishing ecology, such as the one in Japan, can be capable of.) It tells the story of Hikaru Azuma, an autistic boy in an average Japanese city, from his birth, in the voice of his mother Sachiko.
Sachiko soon begins to worry that her son isn’t normal – he hates being held, he cries a lot, and, at his eighteen-month-year check-up, a nurse declares that he’s deaf because he doesn’t respond to her. The real diagnosis follows quickly, but it doesn’t help all that much – Sachiko is under a lot of pressure from her workaholic husband Masato and his interfering mother to be a perfect mom. And the measure of a perfect mother is how her child behaves – so a badly behaving child proves that she’s a failure. “They say children grow up as they were raised,” the mother-in-law screams at Sachiko in a full-page panel, “It’s all your fault!”
Soon afterward, Sachiko’s marriage nearly falls apart, and her husband ends up in the hospital from overwork. That does finally get him to reconsider his life – and learn about his son. And he becomes much more helpful and engaged from that point on, though Sachiko is still clearly the primary person taking care of Hikaru, even after she goes back to work part-time.
Luckily, the story of Hikaru’s professional care has been more successful, to keep the story from being totally unhappy. But, even with a series of very cheerful, hard-working teachers, helpers, and caregivers, Hikaru is still autistic. He’ll never be cured, and the best anyone can expect is to help him find a quiet place to fit into the adult world, eventually. He hardly ever speaks, and simply doesn’t react to outside events like everyone else.
The first volume of With the Light covers Hikaru’s young childhood and the first few years of elementary school; the second volume takes him to nearly the end of his days in that school. I don’t know how much more is to follow, but I can imagine Hikaru will need a lot more help, so his story isn’t over.
With the Light is drawn in a fairly standard, if relatively sedate, manga style. All the characters have large eyes, but the expressive gestures, radical panel placement, and broad caricatures that can confuse American manga readers are almost completely absent. It’s another excellent “first manga” series for Westerners, since it’s focused on real facts and a few well-portrayed characters.
With the Light does get somewhat broad and overdramatic at moments, mostly when showing Sachiko’s reactions to Hikaru wandering off yet again. But it’s mostly a closely focused look at one family dealing with a major issue, depicted with careful detail and lots of dialogue. I foresee lot of parents with autistic children reading With the Light to get a sense of what they’re in for, and passing it on to their friends and family to increase awareness. But it’s also quite interesting for those of us who don’t have regular direct contact with the autistic, and I found the attitude of Hikaru’s main teacher (Aoki-sensei) very inspiring.
Andrew Wheeler has been a publishing professional for nearly twenty years, with a long stint as a Senior Editor at the Science Fiction Book Club and a current position at John Wiley & Sons. He’s been reading comics for longer than he cares to mention, and maintains a personal, mostly book-oriented blog at antickmusings.blogspot.com.
Publishers who would like their books to be reviewed at ComicMix should contact ComicMix through the usual channels or email Andrew Wheeler directly at acwheele (at) optonline (dot) net.
I'd be curious to see this book, as a parent of an autistic child myself (Asperger's Syndrome to be precise, and a very high-functioning one at that). Also, I'm curious to see how the disease is treated in the "the nail that sticks up gets hammered down" culture of Japan.Autism has been the hot disease to write about and do news stories about for a while now, and while it helps educate the public about it, you always come across the folks who are "over-educated" and try to help out a little more than a total stranger really should.Dori and I dodged a bullet with Shugie, in that she's very high functioning and nowhere near the extreme cases she's had in some of her therapy classes. It breaks our hearts when parents come to us and say they look at Shugie as a sign of hope that their kids might get better.Tim Kelly (Max & Zook) did a couple of mini-comics about living with his autistic daughter – If I can find the addy I'll pass it along.
I haven't yet read With the Light (as I am working on my own comic about raising my autistic son), but it sounds as if, from all accounts, it's a good antidote to the (Jenny) McCarthyism treatment autism is getting. Books by people who are autistic or raising autistic children are crucial to helping people understand their world, and for coping with friends, relatives or children with autism.I strongly recommend THE RIDE TOGETHER (a comic/text hybrid memoir) by Paul and Judy Karasik, and LOOK ME IN THE EYE by John Elder Robison, to complement WITH THE LIGHT.
Another Parent of an Autistim Spectrum Child here, and I got a chance to read through most of the two volumes at a certain major bookstore today, and while not worth the $26.50 the bookstore was asking per volume, it was worth sitting in the store to read through… I also recommend The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon as a good read to get a perspective on Autism
I own the first 2 volumes of With The Light, and I am greatly satisfied, in not only the story, but it's a very emotional and educational manga. It's a great read, and recommend it to anyone.