Downfall Featured Reviews 

“Downfall”

By | June 16th, 2020
Posted in Reviews | % Comments

After finishing the last page of the self-contained graphic novel “Downfall” (“Reiraku”), I breathed a sigh of relief. What prolific manga creator Inio Asano has produced is a work of unabated misery and anguish- largely for his protagonist, but we should extend that circle outside the book to include the reader, as well. While some may consider this a return to form, a piece more similar in tone to his seminal “Goodnight Punpun,” and a stark contrast to his current pop sci-fi series “Dead Dead Demon’s DeDeDeDe Destruction”, it lacks the nuances of Punpun, and certainly the buoyant humor of Dead Dead. “Downfall,” though a work of technical brilliance on par (and perhaps exceeding) his previous stories, suffers from being TOO MUCH of a downer- a myopic character study that focuses far more on navel-gazing depression of the protagonist than the circumstances that led him there. This is a story about a tortured male artist, and has all of the self-absorption and narcissism you might think a story in that trope might entail.

Cover by Inio Asano
Written and Illustrated by Inio Asano
Selling copies is the only thing that matters.

So what if your first series just ended and you have no idea how to start the next one, your marriage is breaking up, your pure love of manga has been destroyed by the cruel reality of the industry and nothing seems to fill the sucking void inside you…

Find the secret combo for a new hit manga series and everything will be okay.

Right?

Kaoru Fukazawa is that self-absorbed lead character, a mangaka fresh off of finishing his highly acclaimed long-running series “Goodbye Sunset,” and finding himself unsure what to do next. The grueling schedule of his series has left him burnt out creatively, and his marriage to his manga editor wife also seems to stagnating. That Fukazawa is a loose stand-in for Asano is quite evident, with the two being similar in age, careers, the young Fukazawa being drawn with Asano’s signature messy blonde locks, and even down to the graphic novel being written at a time when Asano was going through his own dissolution of his first marriage. There is no mistaking “Downfall” for being semi-autobiographical. However, I get the sense that Asano is hiding a bit behind Fukazawa, a man with an alarming lack of self-awareness or introspection, despite all of the monologuing. The other characters in the story lack much depth- they all seem to be written as one-dimensional beings existing FOR Fukazawa, rather than along with him (I’ll circle back to this in a bit).

The book is thin on plot, drifting from scene to scene with Fukazawa, who seems aimless in anything except wallowing in his own misery. Blank white drawing pages stare back at him while he questions his existence. He cries after sex with a sex-worker at a love hotel- not in shame for cheating on his wife, but out of self-pity for what he considers the end of his artistic career. Make no mistake, if there is one thing I think that really connects in this piece, is Asano’s message of burnout- of the danger of tying creation to capital (and, therefore, value). “Goodbye Sunset” is Fukazawa’s “Goodnight Punpun,” a heartbreaking work of painful truths and self-reflection that took a lot out of the artist, and while met initially with both critical acclaim and commercial success, over time seemed to lose both. “Sunset” was no longer about the art, it was about the business. This preoccupation with sales warps his sense of the industry, his identity, his audience, and eventually his marriage.

I should pivot a bit to the art, as it provides a nice counterpoint to the story, such as it is. Asano is well-regarded, and rightfully so, for his figure work, which run the gamut of highly cartoonish/stylized to the breathtakingly realistic, as well as his technical prowess with digital art, most notably his use of photography in backgrounds, painstakingly redrawn and accentuated to give his work and added realism without looking like hasty photoshop blending two art disciplines. Asano’s work is a joy to look at, even when his story may not be your cuppa. Every panel tells its own story, and Asano only seems to be growing as a “director,” as what is being shown is often enhanced by where the “camera” is being placed. A shot of how Fukazawa holds his book bag during a car ride while conversing with his co-worker only accentuates his boredom and malaise, or his framing of a conversation between Fukazawa and his increasingly distant wife, showing very little eye contact between panel to panel, the wife often showed with her back to him, lets readers know just how wrong the relationship has gone, without having to spell it out for audiences. This is the work of a true storyteller, and Asano should get every credit for being able to keep our attention, keeping our eyes entertained, while perhaps beating us over the head with the theme.

Continued below

That leads me to what I wanted to circle back to, the art of the story itself, and how story and art intertwine to present the book in a way I certainly didn’t consider while reading, but have come to think about subsequently. Certainly Asano is presenting us with a “version” of himself in “Downfall,” but it is not Asano himself. We are all more well-rounded, more complex than Fukazawa, so why is he such a miserable jerk? Where can we see his more redeeming qualities? Here’s where my review hits a snag, because while I appreciate this bit on a technical level, I don’t think it makes the read any more enjoyable.

“Downfall” is told in a first-person perspective. We are only privy to Fukazawa’s thoughts, and his alone. Asano wrote this during a dark time in his life, and put every angry thought he had about himself, his relationships, his profession, and his art, on the page, and this is the outcome. I’m reminded of the anecdote about Steven Spielberg going through a messy divorce while making (or just prior to) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and turned in the darkest and angriest movie in the series. A movie in which the villain LITERALLY tries to rip the heart out of the protagonist, and the primary love interest is a screechy, self-absorbed woman with almost zero chemistry with Dr. Jones. In many ways, the very ugly side of Asano’s heart is ripped out and on the page here, as well. The tortured artist spends too much time dwelling in his own planet of misery, and all the supporting characters seem to revolve around his orbit, rather than have much lives of their own. Asano even goes so far as to draw certain characters in a more cartoony style, as if from Fukazawa’s own perspective.

Ultimately, dedicated fans of Asano will read “Downfall” with or without my review, and I wouldn’t blame them- that’s certainly why I decided to read the book. His art is unparalleled and he only continues to improve with each release. For people unfamiliar with Asano, I’d be hesitant to recommend this graphic novel for various reasons, the most important being I think there are better places in his catalogue to start, and I think this newest work is better understood and appreciated when you know already who Asano is. “Downfall,” by no means a complete disappointment, is also not a book I’d readily recommend.


//TAGS | Original Graphic Novel

Johnny Hall

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