The horrors of eating disorders.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Moyoco Anno
Editing: Yoshito Hinton
What They Say
Noko appears to be living a great life, she’s got a good job and a loving boyfriend, but beneath a thin veneer is a young woman who is struggling with her self-image and self-confidence as she fights to keep her weight down. To Noko, being 5 pounds overweight means being miles away from happiness in her lovelife and in her work-place.
Technical:
The cover here is an absolutely disturbing image of a gaunt Noko digging into a sub, eyes half-crazed. It’s a shocking image that really captures the horror of the eating disorders that show up in the book. The back cover on the other hand contains a sketchy image of a similarly overly skinny Noko, though this time the text and shadows cover up the more disturbing signs of her self-abuse, making this act almost as her idealized image, a flipside of what’s displayed on the front cover. Honorifics are not used, paper quality feels solid, sound effects are left in their original form and translated, text reads smoothly, and a few colored pages appear at the front of the book as bonuses.
The art style here is surprisingly subdued, far more so than the cover may lead you to believe. The gentle look of the book actually makes for a rather nice contrast with the disturbing nature of its content. Fortunately, it also doesn’t hold back, showing Noko properly as both overweight and disturbingly underweight, as well as a surprisingly frank amount of nudity. Characters are visually distinct, emotions come across well, and backgrounds are decent and appear when needed. It’s definitely a bit of an odd mix of soft and harsh, but it makes for a rather visually interesting book that certainly has the necessary pop to it.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Noko is a woman working in an office who unfortunately turns to eating whenever she’s stressed. As a result she’s on the overweight side of things, which certainly doesn’t help. At the very least she does kind of have friends at the office, as well as a boyfriend she’s been with since high school. However, that starts crashing down when she sees her boyfriend Saito with Mayumi, one of the girls from work. To make matters worse, Saito ends up scolding her about talking about nothing but food, and she proves completely unable to stand up for herself. Mayumi proves herself to be impossibly scummy as time goes on, not only talking about having relations with Saito, but even stealing Noko’s work and then making her look bad by leaving it undone. This finally causes Noko to snap and act out, but that certainly doesn’t fix things either.
Things start to change for Noko when she gets disgusted with her weight and meets up with a creepy old man by the name of Fujimoto. He ends up paying her a ridiculously large sum of money for letting him fondle her, and she uses that money to finance help in getting thinner. From there things spiral out of control as we learn that Saito is only with Noko because he prefers pathetic girls, Mayumi ends up ruining Noko’s career with a frame job, and Noko ends up on the dark path of bulimia.
Obviously Noko isn’t able to find the happiness she expected in simply being skinny, but will she be able to turn herself around, or is she doomed to tread a path towards ruin?
In Summary
This book makes for a fascinating read, really digging into the concept of weight. Noko treads both ends of the spectrum, and it’s absolutely tragic to watch what happens to her throughout. Perhaps what’s the most shocking and yet most honest about the book, though, is that ultimately nobody is “right.” Pretty much all the characters do something terrible in their own way, which helps prevent the book from becoming too preachy. In the end it shows that weight disorders are a very serious issue, and recognizes that it’s certainly not an easy topic. It may not be for the faint of heart, but if you’re interested in the subject be sure to give this book a look.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: Vertical
Release Date: July 22nd, 2014
MSRP: $13.95