Manga like Shinkaigyo

1F: Fukushima Daiichi Genshiryoku Hatsudensho Annaiki

Also known as Ichi-F: A Worker's Graphic Memoir of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

On March 11, 2011, Japan suffered the largest earthquake in its modern history. The 9.0-magnitude quake threw up a devastating tsunami that wiped away entire towns, and caused, in the months afterward, three nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. Altogether, it was the costliest natural disaster in human history.

This is not the story of that disaster.

This is the story of a man who took a job. Kazuto Tatsuta was an amateur artist who signed onto the dangerous task of cleaning up the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, which the workers came to call “Ichi-F.” This is the story of that challenging work, of the trials faced by the local citizens, and of the unique camaraderie that built up between the mostly blue-collar workers who had to face the devious and invisible threat of radiation on a daily basis. After six months, Tatsuta’s body had absorbed the maximum annual dose of radiation allowed by regulations, and he was forced to take a break from the work crew, giving him the time to create this unprecedented, unauthorized, award-winning view of daily life at Fukushima Daiichi.

“I drew this manga because I wanted people to see what day-to-day life at the nuclear power plant is like. Because I believe that’s essential to the future of our country.”
-Kazuto Tatsuta



Tags: Non-fiction , Work , Educational , Seinen , Autobiographical , Historical

Akai Yuki

Also known as Red Snow.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

A collection of short stories drawn with great delicacy and told with subtle nuance by legendary Japanese artist Susumu Katsumata. The setting is the pre-modern Japanese countryside of the author's youth, a slightly magical world where ancestral traditions hold sway over a people in the full vigor of life, struggling to survive the harsh seasons and the difficult life of manual laborers and farmers. While the world they inhabit has faded into memory and myth, the universal fundamental emotions of the human heart prevail at the center of these tender stories.



Tags: Historical , Seinen , Anthology , Mythology , Rural , Youkai , Nudity

Munou no Hito

Also known as The Man Without Talent.

Status: Finished
Genres: Drama , Slice of Life

The Man Without Talent is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs—used-camera salesman, ferryman, stone collector—hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan.



Tags: Autobiographical , Seinen , Philosophy , Rural , Primarily Adult Cast , Male Protagonist , Drawing