Mothers Manga

Mothers Manga features story and art by Kusahara Umi. 

Kusahara Umi’s works possess a light touch and lyrical sensibility, even while tackling heavy thematic material. Mothers collects 12 heartfelt stories exploring the emotionally fraught nature of human relations, and the process both of giving, and of receiving, love. Candidly and with great warmth, Umi depicts the multitudinous effects of loss, the poetic form of vulnerability and urgency of coping with incapacitation; Mothers is a tender and carefully observed reflection on the various constellations of love and family which shape our lives.

A man grapples with his complicated relationship with his mother, who he abandoned after leaving home for college, and whose heart (and body) were too big for the world to be kind to; a young girl finds a small bird, and after nursing it back to health the bird continues to grow alongside the girl, accompanying her through each stage of life in a kaleidoscopic waltz until it carries her “home” for one last journey; the familiar “Red Riding Hood” context is juxtaposed with a young woman who comes into the woods to visit her “wolf” grandmother, the literal fantasy-tinged presentation dissolving into the subtle issue of independence and the difficulty of caring for those in need; a young mother visits her new husband’s estranged-and-now-comatose son at the hospital, looking for answers after he and his girlfriend are recovered from a car crash.

These and many other works which Kusahara Umi has carefully crafted over the years will be available in English for the very first time. Umi’s stories here are heartfelt, beautifully drawn, and deal with complicated human relationships in a sensitive and honest way.