Much as I’m enjoying The Favorites Alphabet, I do find myself missing the weekly immersion of The Josei Alphabet, so I’ve turned to that category for this week’s bit of begging. Specifically, I’ve turned to Shueisha’s Young You, and I’ve found slice of life.
Nanae Haruno’s Papa Told Me ran for 27 volumes, meaning it was a fixture in Young You for virtually the entire publication history of the magazine. It falls in a sub-category of manga (a single father raising a daughter) that has yielded some books I really enjoy (Bunny Drop and Yotsuba&! from Yen Press come to mind).
Chise, a little girl in elementary school, has lost her mother. She’s being raised by her father, a novelist, who works at home, which allows him to be an attentive parent to his bright and curious daughter. From what I can discern, Haruno focuses on everyday stuff in Chise’s life, events and activities which can be exciting for a kid and sweetly nostalgic for an adult. (The mono no aware is strong in this one, unless I miss my guess.)
This kind of stuff is basically crack for me, and while the length is daunting, there is precedent for publishers offering a sampler. French house Kana put out three double-sized books that seem to pick highlights from the series, so an English-language house (say, oh, Viz) would just have to acquire the rights to those books. Then, of course, demand would be so high that Viz would have to publish the entire series. And I would get that battle unicorn I’ve always wanted.
The samples on Shueisha’s page look really sweet.
