Oba Electroplating Factory

＂Oba electroplating factory shows Tsuge reflecting upon his own life, his work, and his contemporaries. While on a trip to hot springs, a wife teases her husband about a former fling: a young cartoonist is aghast at the cavalier conduct of his supposed betters; a child slaves away at a dangerous factory job, unaware of the danger and adult dramas surrounding him. Translated by Ryan Holmber, this volume is an indispensable addition to the literary comics canon and shining example of world literature at its most human. Following his breakthrough success of ＂Neijishiki, Yoshiharu Tsuge forgest a path for autofiction in manga and changes the cultural landscape of comics forever. The fourth volume of seven from the celebrated and influential Garo artist, Oba Electroplating Factory contains some of Tsuge’s most revealing and personal works--studies in staging nature, working to evoke stillness and movement that renders his chosen setting a character all on its own＂--

Yoshiharu Tsuge was born in Tokyo in 1937. Influenced by the realistic and gritty rental manga of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, he began making his own comics. He was also briefly recruited to assist Shigeru Mizuki in the 1960s. In 1968, working for Garo magazine, Tsuge published the groundbreaking story ＂Neji-shiki＂ (commonly called ＂Screw Style＂ by Western readers), which established Tsuge as an influential manga-ka and a cultural touchstone in the changing Japanese art world. He is considered the originator and greatest practitioner of the ＂I-novel＂ method of comics-making. In 2005, Tsuge was nominated for the Best Album Award at Angoulême International and in 2017 won the Japan Cartoonists Association Grand Award.