Tatsumi

Eric Khoo previously came to Rotterdam with a few Singapore features and now pays tribute to the Japanese manga author Tatsumi Yoshihiro in his first animation film. Tatsumi is known as a pioneer of the 'gekiga', the comic-strip genre aimed at adults that is regarded as the more serious form of manga. The film is based on A Drifting Life, Tatsumi's autobiographical manga, through which Khoo has intertwined several of his short stories as independent episodes.
At the age of 12, Tatsumi is already a passionate illustrator. He makes many attempts to build up a career as a manga artist, fed by his admiration for the manga grandmaster Tezuka Osamu. Impressions of post-war Japan can be seen in the background of this melancholy story. This last theme is above all powerfully present in the much grimmer short stories by Tatsumi, with their tragic characters and bizarre turns. The simple animation style remains close to the work of Tatsumi himself.