A Smart and Courageous Child

Winner of the 24th Manga Division Excellence Award at the 2020 Japan Media Arts Festival

Every young couple has high hopes for their unborn child, and Sara and Kouta Takano are no different. But only days away from giving birth, Sara learns about the tragedy of Malala Yousafzai’s attempted assassination at the hands of the Taliban, and her pure and innocent belief in the future is shaken. If such a smart and courageous child can be hurt so badly by the world, how can she keep her own baby safe? With Sara now in a state of shock, will the young couple be able to bridge the widening gap between them, or will it tear their family apart?

The reality of this world, as seen through the eyes of an author that has spent years illustrating the women and their lives.

＂A story that exposes its whole heart on the page, Miki Yamamoto’s A Smart and Courageous Child perfectly encapsulates the nearly unbearable hope and angst of being a new, expectant parent. It is no exaggeration to say this comic made me cry with recognition and remembrance of this fragile time before my own children’s births. Raw and relatable to any parent, A Smart and Courageous Child uses simplistic illustrations to tell a universal story. Drawn only with black, red, yellow, and slate-blue colored pencils, it captures a muted snow globe of a world--the strange liminal space that new parents occupy, seemingly insulated from everything else.＂ -- Lauren Orsini, Anime News Network

＂Such stylistic choice contributes to making A Smart and Courageous Child a heartwarming reading, where mutual trust and care are presented as a potential solution to the issue of a world saturated with bad news and skepticism. [...] Powerful and moving in its apparent simplicity, A Smart and Courageous Child sure deserves the popularity enjoyed upon receiving the 24th Manga Division Excellence Award at the 2020 Japan Media Arts Festival, whose commission did not fail to notice how behind Miki Yamamoto’s gentle visuals lies a much-needed call for change. A change towards an age where kindness and adaptability are the antidote to horror.＂ -- Giovanni Stigliano, Asian Movie Pulse

＂If you’ve ever felt any anxiety about something you can’t control, you will empathize with Sara and how she can’t cope with these new fears that have sprung up out of what feels like nowhere, the loss of control that she can’t help but feel. The art is deceptively simple, using what looks like colored pencils to create a sense of a picture book, which of course, as one character says, is for not just children, but parents as well.＂ -- Rebecca Silverman, Anime News Network

＂This book brilliantly captures the anxieties held by people of today. Sara embodies the joyful anticipation of a mother-to-be, until an international story breaks and expands her list of hopes and fears in the information-flooded world. A modern audience can relate to her distrust in the times, and Sara’s anguish is universal in its resonance. The work devotes numerous techniques to express its intentions but remains accessible. Colored pencils bring the story to life, at different times injecting turbulence and warmth. Through a small but striking backlist, the artist has secured a singular presence in the industry. What does it mean to be wise and brave? How do we resist and reverse the cruelties of the world? The artist plumbs this fathomless question and offers a powerful response.＂ -- Kazuko Kawahara, Japan Media Arts Festival

Miki Yamamoto is a manga artist and assistant professor at Tsukuba University, Faculty of Art and Design. She debuted with Bakudan to Ribon (＂A Ribbon and a Bomb＂) in 2011 (Sansai Books). In 2012 she released Sunny Sunny Ann! (Kodansha) and received the 17th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize New Face Award. The same was published in French in 2018 and was officially selected for the 2019 Angoulême International Comics Festival.