Ayako is the transposition of the eponymous manga written by Osamu Tezuka in1973 and 1974. The original work transports us to Japan transformed by the Post-War but where the old demons are still agitated behind the scenes. The return of young Jiro Tengé, a wounded former soldier, to his native village will unravel dark secrets and allows Tezuka to expose the failings of Japanese society. For its adaptation, Kubu Kurin takes up the main plot by infusing it with a breath of prohibition and modernity that will certainly divide.
Scam and family secrets
In this modern version, the story takes us to contemporary Japan. Jinro's family, large landowners, live in the village of Yodayama near Tokyo. The village is agitated by future highway work and promises of substantial profits.But the appetite of promoters is slowed by the articles of Tadashi Eno, a journalist who denounces the small arrangements behind the project. That's when Jinro comes in. In Tokyo, he acts on behalf of men in the shadows, collecting debts, threatening, intimidating the recalcitrant. He is sent to his native village to convince this journalist to keep quiet. 
This mafia story will then collide with the secrets of his family. Under the guise of his "job" as a photographer, Jinro returns to his birthplace to discover a terrible situation. Indeed, a new sister has just joined the house, Ayako. But this time, it is not the result of yet another adultery of his father with a housekeeper. She is the daughter of her father and the wife of Kazuma, Jinro's older brother. This unhealthy relationship continues in plain sight. A code of silence that pushes Jinro to act.
Ayako : transpose and surpass the original
From this frame respecting the original canvas, Kubu Kirin builds his own dark narrative, a bold variation on cowardice and human cruelty. Her story first accentuates the feminist, anti-paternalistic discourse of the work. Jinro's family is indeed highly dysfunctional. At the top, the father multiplies extra-marital affairs, humiliates his eldest, his wife. In the center, the threads are torn between submission and rebellion. At the bottom, women remain objects of desire, rejection and negotiation. The whole family intrigue is therefore based on this game of being able to control by the father who allows himself everything because he can do what he wants with the inheritance. Untouchable, it is on his two illegitimate daughters that the rancour, the cowardice, the frustration of the members of the family fall. Kubu Kirin also gives us a dark case of corruption in which Jinro has a murky role. Indeed, in the original story he was a soldier used by the Americans for dirty missions, a pure anti-hero. Tezuka took the opportunity to criticize the influence of the E.U.A and the recycling of former agents of the Japanese empire. Kubu Kirin transforms Jinro into a small hand of the mafia/politico-financial groups that executes his contracts without remorse. The author thus chooses to tackle head-on one of the ills of Japanese society: the collusion between politics, organized crime and the business world. The whole is done under the prism of this amoral character, critical of his father but just as unscrupulous.
Ayako Beauty at the service of discomfort
Graphically, Kubu Kirin's work is splendid. His manga is indeed very luminous carried by an omnipresent sun. Everything is bathed in summer heat. The village of Jinro also embodies ancestral Japan. Small wooden houses, green fields, festivals. A generous nature. The case thus posed accentuates the discomfort created by the revelations and the cowardice of the actors of this drama. 
The characters are also very beautiful both in terms of the face and the bodies. Little Ayako is very touching: innocent, playful. An angel thrown into the center of the arena. The redemption of our anti-hero lies in his fragility.And everything works to put the reader in an awkward position. The drawing takes the systematic opposite of the action it describes. You think you hold a nice shonen in your hands and you discover an uncompromising seinen
Ayako: an eroticism that will divide
One last point will surprise more than one reader: the eroticism that some pages release. Indeed, the mangaka does not take tweezers to stage not only the lust of the father but the disturbing atmosphere of the family. Women's bodies are very sensual, breasts generous, looks languid. The designer also offers us "pantsu" moments (panties), misunderstandings in the showers, references to the limit of incest … But far from being totally gratuitous scenes, these moments accentuate the feeling of discomfort and heaviness of the general atmosphere. Is it a family totally uninhibited on these questions of body or is it a family unit plagued by the morality of the father and the unspoken? One thing is certain, this is not a manga to put in any hand. Especially since the changes in tone are brutal and the author likes to flirt with the more adult style. Ayako deserves a keen look. The tone of the story, the eroticism of the drawing, serve a highly sulphurous, disturbing and fascinating purpose. This first volume is a convincing introduction that nevertheless risks destabilizing more than one reader.
