I'll Give It My All...Tomorrow, Vol. 1

Gr 10 Up—It's hard to feel sympathy for someone like Shizuo Oguro. Instead of supporting himself and his daughter, he quits his corporate job of 15 years and decides to hang around the house playing video games and trying to become a manga artist. There is one major obstacle: he isn't very talented. He is frequently belittled by his father and by his coworkers, and he has to borrow spending money from his own daughter. His relationship with her is strained for another reason, as well: he discovers that she is working in the sex industry when he runs into her after his visit to a local "fashion health" (full-service) massage parlor. If there is something positive to be said for Oguro, it's that he is not judgmental of other people. Like Don Quixote, his outlook is often strangely positive even in the face of bad news. The story is sometimes funny, but in a poignant way rather than in a laugh-out-loud way. Aono's simple line drawings are less polished than the artwork usually found in manga, but they fit the story of this struggling artist. At the end of this volume, it appears that Oguro's daughter is willing to believe in his dream, and that this will motivate the man to one day become a published author. The next volume in the series will presumably demonstrate just how much of Oguro's dream will be realized.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library