Sabishii No Wa Anta Dake Ja Nai

A manga examining the controversy behind Japanese composer Mamoru Samuragochi claiming to be a deaf by interviewing people with hearing disorders and also Samuragochi himself.

I’ve enjoyed Kouji Yoshimoto’s non-fiction stuff ever since I read his series on Tezuka Osamu and this title was no exception. I was really impressed at how Yoshimoto takes the time to try and explain the struggles and situations being deaf brings in modern Japanese society. It’s always great to see proper representation of disabilities, especially for Japan.

Yoshimoto also gets into the process it took to interview Samuragochi and there are various scenes with his editor where they reflect on what was discussed. This gave the story a much more open ended feeling showing Yoshimoto openly struggling to see if Samuragochi was truly lying about being deaf or not.

Fascinating series and I want to read more! There is also a documentary about Mamoru Samuragochi called Fake that I want to check out as well.

~dakazu