There's no rush! Kuroda's "Eggplant" which has its own mystery.
1 ? The flash of detail
Example 1: Volume 1, Short Story 3, "2 People"
The president of the company is facing the window, looking at the view, when the natural light is evenly spread on the body of the president and Takama, and the entire room.
When the page is turned, suddenly the two figures turn into black shadows. When Takama took the cheese, the faint light from the refrigerator hit his face. When he wanted to use the eggplant to make a wine dish, the female president suddenly disappeared, and went into the bedroom to look around and realized that the female president has been lying on the tatami mat. At this point, the female president deliberately said, "Excuse me, can I lie down for a while?"
If the reader doesn't experience the page-turning, he or she may not realize that the entire scene is darkening as the day progresses in the subplot. The gradual change of light on the characters underlines the rising ambiguity of men and women in reality. Kuroda outlines time and space on the page, giving the reader the physical experience of being in the scene of the characters!
Example 2: Volume 2, Chapter 15, "Roasted Eggplant with Beer"
Late at night, the newlyweds, the wife wakes up hungry in her sleep. After a struggle, she pulls her husband up and asks him what she can eat to fill her stomach. Kuroda utilizes a simple scene to portray the tiredness of the newlyweds after the wedding, and the playfulness of the couple is reflected in the playfulness of the couple's love.
At the end of the story, the wife, satisfied with her grilled eggplant and beer, reaches into her bodysuit to take off her bra, and then drifts off to sleep.
I find Kuroda to be really stingy with details! As a male manga artist, one really has to admire his powers of observation when he utilizes such trivial details to show the little slovenliness of women's lives. The way the characters in the manga drink, the little flicking of cigarette butts, the little indecent habits in eating and drinking, if you have a habitual action in you that is similar to the character's, the intimacy comes naturally. Don't take these details lightly. Often times, whether a piece of work is able to move people lies in the details.
Kuroda is a master of detail, more like a playwright in his use of light, time, space, and sound. Even though most of the story's scenes are very simple, you'll notice that through the fusion of characters, dialog, facial expressions, and effect sounds (the Taiwanese version is untranslated, sadly!) You'll find that through the blend of characters, dialog, facial expressions, effect sounds (the Taiwanese version is untranslated, sadly!), and other factors, the manga's look and feel is wonderfully realistic!
2 ? The Summer of Antaresia's struggle
Volume 1, short story 5 and 6, "The Summer of Antaresia" is one of the most luxurious of the many "eggplants"!
This short was animated by master animator Kitaro Takasaka. Kitaro Takasaka has been working with Hayao Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli for a long time, and has worked on animations such as A Thousand and One and AKIRA, so this animation also has a bit of Ghibli style to it.
Takasaka himself is a big fan of cycling and this is his first time directing an animation, so it's clear that he's dedicated to it. The film "Eggplant, Summer in Antalucia" is a one-to-one recreation of a real bike race, with lots of local Antalucia scenery, a tight storyline, and detailed tension in the characters, making "Eggplant, Summer in Antalucia" a masterpiece of animation.
Let's go back to Kuroda's "Summer of Antalucia" manga.
The main character, Pepe, is an ordinary young man in Antalucia. As a child, he used to steal a bicycle from his older brother, and when he joined the army, he took the bicycle for himself. And by the time he went to join the army, his brother had taken Karuman, a childhood friend of both brothers***.
Demobilized, Pepe leaves his heartbroken hometown and joins a professional cycling team. But lacking in talent, he doesn't fare as well on the team. On the day of his brother's wedding to his lover, his race comes to a stage in his hometown, the team coach's displeasure with him, and his teammate's unexpected exit, all of which make him want to exhaust every cell of his body to the finish line, to complete his own struggle.
Perhaps the cartoon can't show the intense scenes of sports competition as smoothly as the animation, but the image of Pepe's last desperate sprint, riding towards the championship with everything he has, is still very shocking! As I watched Pepe climb the podium and take first place, I trembled inwardly because I had a similar experience with Pepe.
The main character, Pepe, has **** in common with the characters in the other short stories in the manga - these people don't have any special charisma, they're like "eggplants", just like you and me, just ordinary people. They are just ordinary people, like you and me. They don't look amazing, they don't have any outstanding talents, they can't accomplish anything great, and they don't have any amazing reversal of fortune. Just like this as an ordinary person, living an ordinary life.
But even such an ordinary "eggplant" can become so delicious.
3 ? The Eggplant and Kuroda Thiokol
Looking back at the manga, Kuroda Thiokol uses the eggplant to link all the short stories, but the symbolism of the eggplant varies from one story to the next, and the emotions it represents are sometimes very rich, and sometimes very simple. By choosing something that can be found everywhere, the author probably wanted to convey the idea that some things in ordinary life are not ordinary to some people.
Maybe it's a bit arbitrary to say that Kuroda Sulphur is a realist manga artist, but at the very least, we can say that Eggplant is not a romanticized work. His drawing style is very rustic, his characters are not beautifully modeled, and his meticulous sketching of reality is full of the realism of life. In terms of story there is also nothing special, or rather, Kuroda Sulphur didn't want to tell any story on purpose, but just draw out a piece of experience, a piece of life of the characters under his pen to depict.
If you come across his work for the first time, you might think, "Is it necessary to draw a story like that?" But when you understand Kuroda's intentions, whether it's the attention to detail, or the characters, or the storytelling, you'll realize his "ulterior motives". His manga is not the kind of work that just lays everything out for you to see. He uses all kinds of reliable details to create a scene that can be faked to make it easy for readers to enter the scene, and what is hidden behind these people and things, you need to find out for yourself.
"The Eggplant" is the key he leaves behind for the reader, and it's also a mirror.
This ordinary and extraordinary life, like the eggplant, needs to be discovered by ourselves.