Murasaki Yamada Explained

Name Nonen:Japanese: やまだ 紫
Birth Name:Mitsuko Yamada
Birth Date:5 September 1948
Birth Place:Tokyo, Japan
Death Date: (aged 60)
Death Place:Kyoto, Japan
Nationality:Japanese
Spouse:One previous husband (separated 1981, divorced 1983)[1]
[2]
Area:Manga artist, essayist, poet

, born as, was a Japanese manga artist, feminist essayist and poet. She was associated with the alternative manga magazine Garo.

Life

She was born in, Setagaya, Tokyo as Mitsuko Yamada, on September 5, 1948. She began drawing artwork as a child. She lived with her grandparents while her mother and sister lived separately; they all lived in Taishidō. Her father died from tuberculosis.[3] She attended, beginning in 1963, and played in a band, "Weeping Love Strings," with four men/boys.[4] She married one of them in October 1971, and the two moved to a danchi apartment in .[5]

She used the pen name "Murasaki Neko" for her poetry work, and later incorporated "Murasaki" into her standard pen name. Ryan Holmberg, the translator of Talk to My Back, stated that the name "Murasaki" reminds one of Murasaki Shikibu and that the name had "poetic connotations" to the author's liking.[6] Additionally, Yamada's daughter, Yū Yamada, stated that Yamada liked the color of purple dyes from lithospermum erythrorhizon, also known as "murasaki". Yamada had a preference for cats, which appears in her works.[6]

She made her debut as a professional manga artist in 1969 in Osamu Tezuka's avantgarde magazine COM and had formal art training before becoming a manga artist.[7] When COM stopped being published, she started working for Garo magazine instead. Her first short story in Garo was "Oh, the Ways of the World" (ああせけんさま Aa Seken-sama) in 1971. For another short story, "When the Wind Blew" (風の吹く頃 Kaze no fuku koro), she won a Honorable Mention at the Big Comic Award associated with the Big Comic magazine.[8] After this, she put her career on hiatus because of marriage and raising her children. She returned to Garo in 1978 and also started publishing essays, illustrations and poetry in literary magazines.[9] From 1981 until 1984, she published the feminist manga series Talk to My Back in Garo, which dealt with being a housewife, a failing marriage and the pressure of raising children.

She separated from her first husband in 1981, and he moved out of her residence. The divorce was complete in 1983. She accused her first husband of spousal abuse.[1]

Yamada ran for a seat in the 1989 Japanese House of Councillors election as part of the Chikyū Club political organization. She lost, along with others in her party. It was the only time she ran for office.[10]

From 2006 on, she taught at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga.[11] In 2007, she also moved to Kyoto.

She married, and was last legally known as .[2] She first met Shiratori in 1984. He moved into her residence around 1985 to 1986. In 2002 they married.[12] She was 17 years older than he was, and she modeled a boyfriend character in Blue Sky after him.[13]

Yamada died at Kyoto Hospital on May 5, 2009, age 60, due to intracerebral hemorrhage.[14]

Style

Her works are described as being pictorial I Novels.

Impact

Frederik L. Schodt regarded her work as particularly important because of the feminist message, rare in shōjo manga. Yamada influenced Hinako Sugiura and Yōko Kondō, her former assistants.[7] The three of them were referred to as the "Three Garo Girls" (ガロ三人娘 Garo san'nin musume),[15] translated by Ryan Holmberg (translator of Talk to My Back) as "three daughters of Garo"; Holmberg argued Yamada's age and motherhood made the moniker "highly misleading", and that while male artists are not usually distinguished by gender, the moniker does so for the female artists and implies that women are inherently bound to families.[16] Holmberg argued that, therefore, the moniker displays sexism.[16]

Works

TitleYearNotesRefs
"My Left Hand..." (ひだり手の... Hidari te no...)May 1969Published in COM.[17]
"Touch-me-not" (鳳仙花 Hōsenka)July 1969Published in COM.[18]
"That's Mine" (あれわわたしの Are wa watashi no)October 1969Published in COM.[19]
"Poems to the Empyrean" (Sora e no uta)March-December 1970A collection of poems with illustrations, published in COM.[20]
"My Lover" (わたしの恋人 Watashi no koibito)May 1970Published in Funny, a magazine. It was one of her two shōjo manga.[21]
"I Have a Question" (しつもんがありんす Shitsumon ga arimasu)August 1970Published in COM.[22]
"Oh, the Ways of the World" (ああせけんさま Aa Seken-sama)February 1971One-shot in Garo[23]
"Sassy Cats" (性悪猫 Shōwaruneko)March 1973Published in Apple Core (アップルコア). In 1978 a version with new illustrations was published in Garo.[24]
"When the Wind Blew" (風の吹く頃 Kaze no fuku koro)May 15, 1973Published in Big Comic[25]
"My Blue Star" (わたしの青い星 Watashi no aoi hoshi)September 1978One-shot in Gals Life (ギャルズライフ). Described by Holmberg as a shōjo work "For all intents and purposes", it was published under the author name Mitsuko Nagatsuki (九月三津子 Nagatsuki Mitsuko) to hide the fact from her husband that she was writing manga again. This pen name included her given name and Nagatsuki; the latter referred to her birth month.[26]
Sassy Cats (性悪猫 Shōwaru-Neko)August 1980Published by [27]
Talk to My Back (しんきらり, Shin Kirari)1981–1984A slice-of-life story about a mother and wife who realises her marriage is failing.
Serialized in Garo, published in 2 vol. by Seirindō.
Translated into English by Drawn & Quarterly
[28]
Dumdums and Wildcat (鈍たちとやま猫 Dontachi to yamaneko)October 1981Published by Seirindō.[29]
A Blue Flame,[30] known in Japan as A Shimmering Pale Color (ゆらりうす色 Yurari Usuiro)1983-1984Published in Comic Morning, and in book form by Kodansha. In 1986 it was adapted into a film titled Bed In (ベッド・イン). Published in English by Drawn & Quarterly in the collection Second Hand Love.[31] [32]
A Cat Watches from the Trees (Ki no ue de neko ga miteru)1983-1992Published in La Mer.[33]
His Majesty, Mr. Goldfish (Kingyō no tonosama)1984-1985Published in .
The Burden of Happiness (しあわせつぶて Shiawase tsubute)1984-1985Published in Shinsen.
This Is How Cats Have Come and Gone (Kōshite neko ga fuetari hettari)1985-1986Published in Garo.
Second Hand Love1986-1987Published in Comic Baku. Published in English by Drawn & Quarterly in the collection Second Hand Love.[34]
Yume no Maigo-tachi: Les Enfants Reveurs (夢の迷子たち)1988-1990with, published in Garo
Blue Sky1992–1993Follows a woman's life and struggles after she divorces.
Otogizōshi (御伽草子)1997A manga adaptation of Otogizōshi, a traditional tale.
2004

Sources:[7] [11] [14]

References

Citations
Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Holmberg,Talk to My Back, p. xxiv.
  2. Web site: Feminist Manga Creator Murasaki Yamada Passes Away. Anime News Network. 2009-05-07. 2024-02-09.
  3. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. x (Google Books PT374).
  4. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xi.
  5. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxii.
  6. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p.xii (Google Books PT358).
  7. Book: Frederik L. Schodt. Frederik L. Schodt. Dreamland Japan. 1996. Stone Bridge Press. 155–159. 978-1-880656-23-5. 2009-05-14.
  8. Web site: やまだ紫,漫画家,マンガ家,女性,詩人,性悪猫,しんきらり,ガロ,COM,年譜 . 2023-01-21 . やまだ紫,漫画家,マンガ家,女性,詩人,性悪猫,しんきらり,ガロ,COM,年譜 . ja.
  9. Web site: やまだ紫,漫画家,マンガ家,女性,詩人,性悪猫,しんきらり,ガロ,COM,年譜 . 2023-01-21 . やまだ紫,漫画家,マンガ家,女性,詩人,性悪猫,しんきらり,ガロ,COM,年譜 . ja.
  10. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxiv-xxxv.
  11. Web site: http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/edu/manga/comicart/faculty.php. ja:やまだ 紫. Kyoto Seika University. Japanese. 2009-05-14. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20081204070013/http://www.kyoto-seika.ac.jp/edu/manga/comicart/faculty.php. 2008-12-04.
  12. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxvii.
  13. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxvi.
  14. Web site: Feminist Manga Creator Murasaki Yamada Passes Away. 2009-05-07. Anime News Network. 2009-05-14.
  15. Web site: Marca . Paolo La . 2018-07-12 . La fidanzata di Minami, di Uchida Shungiku. La svolta pop di "Garo" . 2023-01-21 . . it-IT.
  16. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxviii.
  17. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xiii.
  18. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. ixv.
  19. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xvii-xviii.
  20. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xvi.
  21. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, pp. xviii-ixx
  22. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, pp. xvii
  23. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xviii.
  24. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxi.
  25. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xx.
  26. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxv.
  27. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxvi.
  28. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxviii.
  29. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxvii-xxviii.
  30. Web site: Hong. Terry. Second Hand Love. Booklist. 2024-04-15. 2024-05-26.
  31. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, Talk to My Back, p. xxxiii.
  32. Web site: Holmberg. Ryan. CviCh5tP65Z. Instagram. 2024-02-09.
  33. Holmberg, Talk to My Back, p. xxxiv.
  34. Web site: Holmberg. Ryan. CviCh5tP65Z. Instagram. 2024-02-09.