Tuesday, May 06, 2008

THE HUMAN CLOCK by Tokunan Seiichiro

It's been a while since I blogged any new scanlations I've been reading, and wanted to share The Human Clock, a radical story from the 1960s by Tokunan Seiichiro. You guys are in for a trip, both visually and narratively.



The Human Clock is one of the first projects from a new manga blog I'm really enjoying, Wanted: Cheap Manga. Over the next week or so we'll be highlighting two other fan scanlations from that site, which is run by a dude who goes by the name Rizzah. I've talked with him a few times, and the guy knows his stuff and shares a lot of the same interests as we Same Hatters do... please check out his blog!

Before diving into this manga, I recommend you read the profile of Tokunan Seiichiro that was published online as part of the online translation of Manga Zombie (This project was author-sanctioned and translated on Comipress-- the entire book is a MUST-READ for all weirdo manga fans). There they describe The Human Clock the following way:

"When I talk about 'warped manga from a warping mind,' I’m thinking about this kind of incoherent story. 'The Human Clock' is a lot simpler to explain. The hero is Yubi Chizuo again. He’s a student like before, but this time round he's a dropout. He stays in his house, which is a family shop selling watches and clocks. He gazes and gazes at the clocks. Little by little, he turns into a clock. That is the entire story. It reminds me of Kafka’s Metamorphosis."

Based on Rizzah's translator notes and commentary, I'm super curious to track down a copy of this manga and see how Tokunan's story is told in the original Japanese. It's definitely a great accomplishment to make the manga available to English readers; even if the story falters as it gets to its conclusion, it's still an utterly unique piece of work. I'm interested in learning more about Tokunan... perhaps another short story by him will make it into an eventual anthology of outsider art and/or radical manga? (Here's hoping!)

Please enjoy, and leave any comments for Rizzah here!

Click here to check out CHAPTER 1


Click here to check out CHAPTER 2


Click here to check out CHAPTER 3


Click here to check out CHAPTER 4


Click here to check out CHAPTER 5

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gradually you guys are dragging me into reading manga, and worse you are making me interested in manga that is only scanlated, not actually republished in English so I can get it, aaaargh... =(

edgelord said...

I love this blog! It's the only blog I want to read every entry of, with the exception of close friends. CHAPEAU!


i love you

edgelord said...

Oops, where did that last sentence come from. Ha, ha.

Anonymous said...

I FLAME AMAZEMENT!!1
brilliant manga! loved the whole idea of it...some really interesting imagery in this one. it was often hard to identify what the panels were actually displaying (but this is what makes you reading it again)...and I loved the ending
thank you very much for leading me to this manga...this blog is beyond cool

Anonymous said...

Hey Ryan, what about Devilman from Go Nagai and Dance! Kremlin Palace from Shintaro Kago? Are you eventually gonna talk about them? :)

Anonymous said...

Those are projects I really care about, since Devilman is a classic manga, considered a masterpiece in Japan, and Kremlin Palace is simply too funny to be ignored :)

Anonymous said...

Hey guys, glad you like the manga. It is really hard to tell what's going on in the panels, and the translating was also difficult because a lot of it didn't make sense or have any relation to what's going on. I have another Tokunan Seiichiro story that i'll translate sometime later. It promises to be just as weird as Human Clock.

Unknown said...

Can't wait to read Tokyo Zombie!

Anonymous said...

Hi your new argentinian fan!!

I love this blogspot and all the things you talk about manga,in particular the ones that name kazuichi hanawa and suehiro maruo!!

keep on the good work!!

saludos...

Long Live Toyokatsu Matsunaga

Ryan S said...

@cyphane: YOU HAVE FIGURED OUT OUR EVIL PLAN

@maarten: Thank you so much! We love you too.

@a tree: Glad you found more stuff you like-- you should definitely continue to visit our new friends, WANTED! CHEAP MANGA!

@anonymous K: sent you an email, brutha :)

@rizzah: Congrats dude! I hope a lot of SH readers came your way. I'll continue to post about your new projects as they happen.

@chris: Thanks! I'll send you a copy ;)

@azraelito: Very good to hear from you! I'm always excited to hear from new readers, and I appreciate you taking the time to comment. Check out the archives, and please keep coming back as I add new posts!