Review, Jirō Taniguchi memorial edition: Trouble Is My Business

Earlier this month, Jirō Taniguchi died of an undisclosed illness at the age of only 69. During a career that spanned almost five decades, he authored or co-authored a huge number of manga. However, outside of Japan, only a few of them have earned the recognition they deserve.

One of these oft-overlooked titles is Trouble Is My Business, written by Natsuo Sekikawa. Originally published from 1979–80 (not counting the sequel series), it is Taniguchi’s earliest work available in German. There are also French and Italian editions, but no English one yet as far as I know.

Trouble Is My Business (事件屋稼業 / Jikenya Kagyō)
Language: German (translated from Japanese)
Authors: Natsuo Sekikawa (writer), Jirō Taniguchi (artist)
Publisher: Schreiber & Leser (originally Futabasha)
Year: 2014 (original run 1979–1980)
Pages: 294
Price: € 16,95
Website: http://www.schreiberundleser.de/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=33 (German)
ISBN: 978-3-943808-54-4

Unlike in many of Taniguchi’s better-known manga, there is little to no autobiographical influence in Trouble Is My Business, except that the protagonist, Fukamachi, is of the same age as Sekikawa and Taniguchi, and lives in Tokyo too. Instead of some contemplative family story, this is a collection of almost straightforward ‘hardboiled’ detective cases which are only loosely connected through the character of Fukamachi and his trouble with his ex-wife and daughter.

Rather than the crime cases and their resolution, the real draw here is the subtle humour which is usually based on the hapless, amateurish, down-and-out, small-time detective protagonist and his interaction with other quirky characters. But let’s focus on Taniguchi’s contribution, the artwork. Because already back then, in his early thirties, he had achieved mastery in draughtsmanship.

That is not to say his style didn’t evolve after Trouble Is My Business. The most noticeable difference to his later works is that he didn’t use screen tone as extensively back then, usually relying on parallel hatching to indicate volume and shadows. This results in an overall darker tonality, which is fitting for the ‘noir-ish’ story. My guess is that the reason for this artistic evolution is rather mundane: perhaps Taniguchi wasn’t yet successful enough to be able to hire an assistant who could take over the time-consuming task of applying the screen tones.

Another difference is the frequent display of his skill at depicting technical objects such as vehicles, watercrafts, or firearms, whereas his (too overtly photo-referenced) cityscapes aren’t as impressive as in his later manga. Something Taniguchi excelled at, back then at least as much as in the 90s, is the portrayal of a vast range of different characters. Each of them has a realistic but distinct look (with the sole exception of the barkeeper at Los Lindos, who looks indistinguishable from Fukamachi).

Recommended for fans of the genre, or anyone who wants to discover a different side of Taniguchi.

Rating: ● ● ● ○ ○