Tatsumi Review

Inspired by the 800-page illustrated autobiography of Japanese writer Yoshihiro Tatsumi, the father of gekiga (manga for mature readers), this superbly conceived film combines adaptations of some of the great man’s best short stories, animated in the style of the original manga, with autobiographical interludes narrated by Tatsumi himself. The addition of animation elements — voice acting, music, movement, special effects — to the original comic strips neither enhances nor diminishes the inherent power of the five stories, among them the indelible Hiroshima drama, Hell. But what emerges from the linking sections is a broader story about the powerful insistence of the creative urge, and the true artist’s enslavement to it.