Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover: Utsubora, The Story of a Novelist
It all starts with a suicide.
Aki Fujino’s death shakes the helpless writer Shun Mizorogi. To his surprise, rather than being an end to a chapter, it’s revealed to be the start of something more diabolical than he ever imagined.
Asumiko Nakamura delivers a poignant two-volume manga. Although she’s been active since 2002, she’s a criminally underrated mangaka, publishing jaw-dropping pieces: Nakamura is known to have dabbled in many genres and was acclaimed in each one, making her a one-of-a-kind maestro of the Japanese comic.
First published in 2010, Ustubora is a tormenting story about the popular author Shun Mizorogi. Afflicted by his insecurities and his creative dry spell, he turns to an oeuvre by another writer, Aki Fujino, and recklessly plagiarizes it. What he didn’t know was that everything that will follow is perfectly orchestrated by a girl with an inexplicable identity and spitting image of the late Fujino.
When Mizorogi meets the mysterious but bewitching Sakura Miki, timelines get blurry and the enigma surrounding his plagiarised novel gets heavier. Dark and twisted, Utsubora digs the writers’ graves, all while entangling romance, passion, and ingenuity, in a complex and nebulous tone.
With Haruki Murakami-esque undertones, Ustubora delivers a mind-boggling look into a deviant reality, diving into mature topics of sexual liaisons and suicide. The art is one of the most enchanting elements of this manga: reminiscing of a minimalistic Ai Yazawa and the dark beauty of Tomie by Junji Ito, Nakamura’s style is unique and adds immense depth to the plot.
Utsubora is a psychological plunge into characters afflicted by the secrecy of their desires and moral defiance and is expected to broadcast a TV show based on it soon.
About the Author:
Mizuki Khoury
Born in Montreal, based in Tokyo. Sabukaru’s senior writer and works as an artist under Exit Number Five.
