Just recently I started reading a very unusual, interesting and sometimes even shocking and gives-me-the-creeps manga called ねこぢる (Nekojiru / "Cat Juice"). It's the first manga I've ever read in Japanese. I have to admit it's more difficult than I expected, although I have been enjoying the addition of lots of strange new words to my vocabulary. LOL!橋口千代美 (Hashiguchi Chiyomi) (1967 - 1998) is the mangaka (manga artist/writer) who created this fine work, although she, herself, usually went by the name Nekojiru. The series ねこぢるうどん (Nekojiru Udon), which is now considered to be her finest work, first debuted in 1990. The main characters in Nekojiru are, as the title suggests, cats, primary focused on the cute little kitty brother and sister duo, Nyāko and Nyātta. Surprisingly, the lives of these cute cats are steeped in dark humour, paradoxical comedy, brutality, eeriness and just outright craziness. This probably sounds a bit strange and perhaps even off-putting to some of my readers, but I give you my assurance that this is what makes this manga so unbelievably appealing and fascinating! Quite possibly, some of the content in Nekojiru's stories was influenced by psychedelic drugs like psilocybin mushrooms which make appearances in her books from time to time. Admittedly, after reading one of the stories, I find myself feeling dazed and a little bit creeped out or even disturbed, but in spite of that, or perhaps *because of* it, I am eager for more! I think there is a lot to be said for manga that has the power to do THAT!
After an increase in popularity two anime adaptations of Nekojiru were created. ねこぢる劇場 (Nekojiru Gekijō / Nekojiru Theatre) aired in Japan on TV Asahi in 1999. Then, in 2001, the award-winning ねこぢる草 (Nekojiru Sou / "Nekojiru Grass") was released in both Japan and the U.S. (named "Cat Soup" in English). Sadly, Hashiguchi-san was unable to enjoy any of the fame surrounding her work since she had committed suicide by hanging herself on 10-May-1998, seemingly without any clear motivation, leaving no suicide note.
People who knew Nekojiru personally found her to be somewhat plain and misunderstood, but also unpredictable, mysterious and seemingly fragile if not for shadowy side of her internal personality which she expressed so powerfully in her manga. Whatever the truths of her persona may be, she was an amazing mangaka who left her unique and incomparable mark on the world for which many of us will be forever thankful.
Here are some links I'd like to include with my post:
- Nekojiru homepage: http://nekojiru.net/
- A wonderful up-close-and-personal English-translation of a memoir written by 吉永嘉明 (Yoshinaga Yoshiaki) in a book called 自殺されちゃった僕 (Jisatsu Sarechatta Boku) about his acquaintances with Nekojiru: Part 1, Part 2
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