The Man Without Talent is an unforgiving self-portrait of frustration. Swearing off cartooning as a profession, Tsuge takes on a series of unconventional jobs—used-camera salesman, ferryman, stone collector—hoping to find success among the hucksters, speculators, and deadbeats he does business with. Instead, he fails again and again, unable to provide for his family, earning only their contempt and his own. The result is a dryly funny look at the pitfalls of the creative life, and an off-kilter portrait of modern Japan. (Source: New York Review Books)

A young woman rejects the fast-paced consumer culture of 1980s Japan in favor of a slower, more carefree lifestyle in this tenderhearted, sweetly funny classic of slice-of-life manga. A classic of Japanese manga, Miss Ruki is a warm and vivid portrait of the lives of two young women in Tokyo during Japan’s 1980s bubble economy. The titular Miss Ruki spurns the fast-paced consumer culture of the era in favor of a lighthearted life dedicated to her hobbies, her books, and spending time with her anxious but far more pragmatic friend, Ecchan. Takano’s art moves with all the warmth, grace, and clarity of the everyday moments it depicts. Sweet and funny, these vignettes of a long-gone time still resonate today with readers and authors in Japan. (Source: New York Review Comics)