And maybe that's why for some Japanese readers my manga are difficult to read. I am probably somewhere between comics and manga from this point of view. In interviews with Benoit Peeters, published in 2012 under the title Jiro Taniguchi: the man who draws: interviews, Taniguchi expresses his ambivalence : 'The paradox is that while being mangaka, my style is quite close to comics the European and that I put a lot of elements in each image.

Discovering European comics very early thanks in particular to the magazine Métal hurlant, Taniguchi is a mangaka whose style stands out strongly from that of his compatriots. The rapprochements with European comics on the stylistic and narrative levels are not unrelated to this craze. Since the publication of his first book in French, L'homme qui marche in 1995, Taniguchi has enjoyed impressive success in France. Taniguchi excels in the narration of human relations, in particular within the family circle and the link between man and nature universal themes able to interest any type of reader. In 1992, his collection Terres de rêves received the prestigious Shogakukan manga prize, Special Jury Prize category. Working constantly, Taniguchi dabbles in all styles: adventure, detective story, animal fresco, literary adaptation … But in this prolific work, the intimate stories highlighting everyday life hit the audience right in the heart. To read: Natsume Soseki, the writer of modernity In the 1980s, in collaboration with Natsuo Sekikawa, he created Au temps de Botchan, a historical, social and political fresco of Japan at the end of the Russo-Japanese war featuring the famous writer Natsume Soseki.

He published his first manga Kareta heya (A dry summer) the following year as an independent. His debut as an assistant to mangaka Kyuta Ishikawa then Kazuo Kamimura, Taniguchi will deliver them between 20 in A zoo in winter published in the magazine Big ComicOriginal. See also: Hiroshima in manga Beginnings in Tokyoīorn in Tottori in 1947, the young man, from a modest background, arrived in Tokyo at the age of 22. Taniguchi has indeed made his homeland the setting for his most emblematic manga : My Father's Journal, Distant Quarter or The Magic Mountain books punctuated by his childhood memories. Walking the streets of his childhood, a camera in hand, the mangaka confides in front of the camera his attachment to his native region emphasizing the beauty and gentle way of life of the places. In the documentary 'In the footsteps of Jiro Taniguchi, the walking man' broadcast at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2015, directors Nicolas Finet and Nicolas Albert follow Jiro Taniguchi to Tottori and Kurayoshi.

Furari by Jirō Taniguchi