Not for the light hearted. You ever felt like you don't know how to grow up or that you just don't want to? This maybe a manga for you, a cautionary tale about the pride of youth and the depression of letting your dreams be your master, instead of mastering them! Inio Asano's Solanin.
077: Solanin
By Inio Asano
Translation by JN Productions
Lettering by Analiese Christman
English publication by Viz Media
Solanin tells the story of the unsatisfied Tokyoite Meiko Inoue, unhappy with her office job as a post-grad 20-year-old she quits, and with her savings spends a year so to find her passion. She lives with her boyfriend, Naruo Taneda. A part time graphic designer/illustrator who is also disillusioned by the adult working life and so quits his job to chase his dream of being in a successful rock band. Spurred on by Meiko he gathers his old band mates. His friends Rip and Kato. Rip works as a drugstore clerk who often helps an old man with Dementia find his way to the post box.
Kato is the boyfriend of Meiko's closest female friend Ai, Kato flirts with the ambitious rock chic Ayukawa, and this doesn't go unnoticed from Ai. In fact, Ai allows such behaviour from Kato, letting him have his fun whilst he is still young. Ai is confident that Kato will eventually settle down to mundanity and she'll be the one who is there for him.
When it comes to getting a contract, Taneda and friends are asked to be the band for a manufactured pop idol. Meiko speaks out for the group and refuses the offer. A crisis looms when Taneda realises, he is not going to be a successful rock musician any time soon, struggling to live up to his own pride, he walks out on Meiko. In his absence she listens to the band's CD, his song 'Solanin' makes an impression on her and she comes to terms that Taneda was singing about breaking up.
Luckily Meiko has the support of her friends and after sometime Taneda tries to make amends with her, he tells her that he got his old job back and is now working full time. One has to wonder Wherever Taneda is truly happy with his lot in life since on his way back to Meiko he runs through a red light. Looking at the clear blue sky, his last thoughts are of getting home to Meiko and singing her a love song.
Weeks eventually go by and Meiko gets a job at a flower shop, she can no longer live vicariously through Taneda or project her unsatisfied feelings onto him now that he has gone. But thanks to a visit from Taneda's father, Meiko is told that in order to have any meaningful role in such traumatic events, that it is best she takes the personal calling of proving that Taneda existed. Meiko then picks up Taneda's guitar and makes the decision to take Taneda's place in the band as the new lead. Through her practice she learns how to play Solanin and rediscovers that the song isn't about breaking up with someone, it's instead a song about the grief of transcendence and parting ways with your old self. Meiko performs Solanin to a live audience and she rocks it. Through the precious moments of peace, knowing that such times may not last, Meiko learns to forever cherish her friends. Knowing that there is true satisfaction in having them in her life.
Topics:
- The choice between chasing your dreams or settling down to a mundane life. The silver guitar and the golden guitar? Is there really such a choice or a deadline to making such a choice?
- Taneda's death.
- James mentions a line from Rudyard Kipling's "If…" a poem written for the author's son. The poem itself simultaneously takes inspiration from and gives tribute to the politician Leander Starr Jameson. The second verse reads as:
"If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;"
The Climax and final line of the Poem reads:
"Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!"
- The Disney/Pixar movie 'Soul' was released in 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic it had a limited theatrical release and was released on Disney+ during the Christmas holidays of that year. The film deals with themes of determinism and the belief in having a calling or a specific purpose to one's life.
- Comparisons to the live action movie adaptation of Solanin.
If anyone feels that they or a friend/loved one needs counselling services there is always help. English speakers in the US can go here, there are also services within the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Japan. Alternatively you can listen at the end of this episode for some helplines that you can call. All information herein is accurate as of the time the episode was published.
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