Name: Erik Henderson 's review of Solanin by Inio Asano
Item: Solanin
Rating: 3
Author: Erik Henderson

Inio Asano

La 4ème de couverture indique : «Une petite mélodie un peu folle qui raconte notre jeunesse, imperceptible et ténébreuse.» «Une petite histoire d'amour, drôle et triste, entre Taneda et Meiko, qui n'en sont qu'à leur deuxième année dans le monde du travail.» «Une oeuvre qui a suscité émotion et compassion chez les lecteurs, de tout âge et des deux sexes, une oeuvre qui fait parler d'elle!!»

Solanin

College graduates struggle to cope with the real world. Music offers refuge in this modern manga with an American attitude. Meiko Inoue is a recent college grad working as an office lady in a job she hates. Her boyfriend Shigeo is permanently crashing at her apartment because his job as a freelance illustrator doesn't pay enough for rent. And her parents in the country keep sending her boxes of veggies that just rot in her fridge. Straddling the line between her years as a student and the rest of her life, Meiko struggles with the feeling that she's just not cut out to be a part of the real world.

solanin

There's no going back. I've walked too far away now. And I have to keep moving forward.

Erik Henderson 

human beings were made to love. but in the world we have built for ourselves we can take a man and bind his wrists tightly together. suffocate his passion, burn through his idealism, blow out every candle worth wishing on. 

unlike your average coming-of-age manga, solanin explores the harshness of reality in a way so bare, so cold it leaves you sorely empty. first there is meiko and takeda's near-palpable love. their endless, boundless hope: promise you'll stay with me forever. takeda's declaration. i will never become an adult satisfied with tepid happiness. isn't it so funny, so ironic, that he kept this promise till he had to die for it? 

unsurprisingly, takeda's dream of making it big never gets realised. but when the torch passes itself on to meiko even the audience is fooled for a moment, wool pulling over their eyes. fiction always has a happy ending: maybe that's why i expected meiko to be the one to make takeda's dream come true. i should've known--in the real world, human beings are not granted the same kindness, the same generosity, that the dream-world has to offer. solanin is technically fiction, but it could not be further from a mere 'story'. 

to this day, many remain divided regarding the epilogue. meiko, now in her 30s, married to a man the readers have never met, announcing "i'm pregnant" and "i love you" with a faraway look in her eyes. growing up, solanin seems to scream, is a process of learning how to deny your instinct to love, again and again. growing up is learning you will never be able to live with yourself, either way. numbing yourself, to learning, letting yourself float in stasis when it becomes too much to bear. 

human beings were made to love. but in the world we have built for ourselves we can take a man and bind his wrists tightly together. suffocate his passion, burn through his idealism, blow out every candle worth wishing on. 

unlike your average coming-of-age manga, solanin explores the harshness of reality in a way so bare, so cold it leaves you sorely empty. first there is meiko and takeda's near-palpable love. their endless, boundless hope: promise you'll stay with me forever. takeda's declaration. i will never become an adult satisfied with tepid happiness. isn't it so funny, so ironic, that he kept this promise till he had to die for it? 

unsurprisingly, takeda's dream of making it big never gets realised. but when the torch passes itself on to meiko even the audience is fooled for a moment, wool pulling over their eyes. fiction always has a happy ending: maybe that's why i expected meiko to be the one to make takeda's dream come true. i should've known--in the real world, human beings are not granted the same kindness, the same generosity, that the dream-world has to offer. solanin is technically fiction, but it could not be further from a mere 'story'. 

to this day, many remain divided regarding the epilogue. meiko, now in her 30s, married to a man the readers have never met, announcing "i'm pregnant" and "i love you" with a faraway look in her eyes. growing up, solanin seems to scream, is a process of learning how to deny your instinct to love, again and again. growing up is learning you will never be able to live with yourself, either way. numbing yourself, to learning, letting yourself float in stasis when it becomes too much to bear. 

𓆨

Angie

Zahra

3.5 stars

Easily relatable and the art style was amazing. It took me half of the book to be truly engaged to the story, though.

Joycelyn Ghansah

Maggie Gordon

Perhaps this was a result of cultural differences, but I just didn't really get Solanin. Even as a recently-out-of-my-twenties, these feckless youth just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, nor did I care about their problems (other than grief). I just never connected with the characters despite the length of this piece, and I didn't really feel there was much of a comprehensible emotional journey. The art was truly outstanding though so... at least it was pretty to look at?

Eugenia Andino

¿Hay un subgénero entero de manga sobre veinteañeros que no encuentran su lugar en el mundo? Ni idea, pero leo poco manga y es lo que ha caído recientemente en mis manos. Una historia triste, muy bien contada, con personajes introspectivos y muchas reflexiones de esos de cuando estás alargando una cerveza de madrugada con esos amigos que quieres que sean para siempre. Nunca suena a cliché, ni cuando sabes que lo que dicen los personajes es de una ingenuidad que la vida no les va a perdonar. Resumiendo, un libro precioso, bueno para ilusionarte con veinte años y para que te dé la nostalgia con cuarenta.

Julia Milhomens 

“a única certeza que eu tenho é que o tempo continua como um rio e um rio eventualmente leva a um oceano. talvez eu tentarei nadar contra a correnteza... mas não existirá um próximo eu”

tomar no cu

Erik Henderson &
Solanin by Inio Asano

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Erik Henderson &Solanin by Inio Asano

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Join the club

Erik Henderson &
Solanin by Inio Asano