A Distant Neighborhood, Volume 1 (2005)

This book has restored my faith in manga. It is a fascinating story about a man who finds himself living as his 14-year-old self knowing his own future. It is beautifully drawn, tense and mysterious. I am very eager to read the next volume! ( )

Very detailed illustration help the reader to immerse himself in this tale of a 48-year old man who time shifts into the body of his fourteen-year old self. He rediscovers his family and his old hometown, since lost. He gradually realises that he is able to change events, maybe even prevent his father's imminent disappearance. But what of his own future, his wife and daughters? This is a subtle and contemplative tale, drawn in impeccable detail. I look forward to the second volume. ( )

"You know, I asked my old man, and from what I gather, she doesn't have any relatives anywhere, and she's almost always all alone. Your father's probably the only one that comes to visit her. I'm not sure but . . . they say she doesn't have long left."

A Distant Neighborhood, Volumes 1 and 2, by Jiro Taniguchi, is the story of a 48 year old businessman, Hiroshi, who finds himself inexplicably sent back into his 14 year old body at the time right before his father disappeared from his family's lives. He feels the joy of the lightness of his body, and appreciates the happiness of his family more than he did the first time around. He has mixed feelings about the mutual attraction he feels with smart Tomoko Nagase, as he knows he actually is much older than she is, and he has a wife and family back in his "real life". Will he be able to solve the mystery of why his seemingly happy father left them? Will he be able to stop him? Will he correct past mistakes, will he change his life? Will he ever get back to his own time?

Taniguchi has become one of my favorite graphic novelists, with a beautiful, detailed drawing style and relatively simple, engaging stories that feature believable characters. His The Walking Man features a salaryman wandering away from his usual route and finding a life full of grace in small moments, like a woman returning to the cherry tree of her childhood to lie down in its blossoms. Here, Hiroshi believably deals with his knowledge of the future and desire to alter the past. Time with Nagase at the beach, riding a motorcycle with her, questioning his father about his happiness, getting drunk with his friend Shimada, meeting Shimada at a distant hospital . . . We pull for Hiroshi to find his way, and for his family and companions to find theirs. It may be too sentimental for some readers, but not this one. ( )

A great story, about the chance to start afresh in life, and the costs entailed. Beautiful art. ( )

In A Distant Neighborhood, a middle aged businessman gets on the wrong train and accidentally finds himself wandering the streets of the small town he grew up in. Then, in a mysterious turn of events, he finds himself transported back in time, trapped in the body of his 14-year-old self. Much of the book is predicatble: as a teenager again, he tries to right the wrongs of his past, and revel in the last freedoms of childhood. What is wonderful about this book, though (other than the art, which is crisp and meticulous and wonderful to look at) is its attention to the mundane details of small-town Japanese life. From small, trivial social mores to the tiniest details of food and entertainment, Taniguchi sucks the reader into a different world almost completely. It's a wonderful, absorbing read, and I can't wait to get the second volume ( )