Rumi Hara

A short story collection of sheer nonsense and other flights of fancy.

Tree Love ~ ✰✰ ~

Two people with trees growing from their heads kiss and mingle their branches. That's it.

The Peanutbutter Sisters ~ ✰✰ ~

The three Peanutbutter sisters scavenge items from the dump on New Mississippi Island off the coast of Georgia to sell on eBay. One day they take a vacation by gliding on the winds to New York City, but when their return whale falls through, they have to hitchhike. Very minor adventures are had along the way.

The sisters, whose ages are ambiguous, also appear in two-page spreads throughout the book where they randomly expose their nether regions and have a graphic bowel movement. So there's that.

Walking With Tammy Tabata ~ ✰✰✰ ~

Steve walks with Tammy as they plan a Noh play for an extra credit project at school. They actually do a good job of tying their theme to a body of water called Newtown Creek that runs between Brooklyn and Queens in New York City. It's just two people walking and talking, but it was my favorite story in the book.

Living Things ~ ✰✰ ~

A reporter in the year 2099 is embedded in an off-road race between strange creatures and their odd motorized vehicles. Think "Wacky Races" gone wrong.

Bubblegum Fighters ~ ✰✰ ~

Two girls duel with their bubble gum bubbles. Pointless.

Verti-go-go ~ ✰✰✰ ~

Brian Tran faints whenever he sees an exposed belly button and immediately has highly sexual dreams, usually involving orgies. He's torn between treating the condition or just rolling with it. It's amusing to think what I might decide if I were in his shoes.

Bombadonna ~ ✰✰ ~

Wherever the Bomb Queen points, her minions -- naked women with bombs for heads -- run and explode. It's terrorism but also a good thing? Huh? No.

Side note: With this book, I complete my project of reading all the books on the Publishers Weekly 2022 Graphic Novel Critics Poll. It also made the list for NPR's Books We Love 2022: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels, but I still have one more book to read before I finish that list.

FOR REFERENCE

Contents: Tree Love -- The Peanutbutter Sisters -- Walking With Tammy Tabata -- Living Things -- Bubblegum Fighters -- Verti-go-go -- Bombadonna… (más)

This is a sweet story about the relationship between a child and her grandmother.

Here we visit the magical world of Nori (short for Noriko), a spirited three-year-old girl who lives with her parents and grandmother in the suburbs of Osaka during the 1980s. Both of Nori's parents work full-time, leaving her grandmother as Nori’s caregiver and companion. Here the adventure begins.

One evening Nori meets an army of bats which is a symbol of happiness so the bats are nit feared and are invited into the house. Another day, she chases a missing rabbit through the schoolyard while performing as a moon in the class play. This is the myth of the Moon Rabbit. Then a ditch by the side of the road opens to a world of kids, crawfish, beetles, a golden frog and an albino salamander. That same night, her grandma takes Nori to the Bon Odori festival to dance with her ancestors. Then Nori wins a trip to Hawaii, and finds herself swimming with a sea turtle. Strange, because Nori has never learned how to swim.

This is a slow, meandering odd story that didn’t quite capture me. The art is created is black-and-white with spots of color reminiscent of East Asian folklore and Japanese culture. The effect is warm and calming.… (más)