Picture Book/Graphic Novel: The Yellow Jar, vol. 1, Patrick Atangan

This was an odd little book, so I snagged it as it came through delivery.

The Yellow Jar, vol. 1: Two Tales from Japanese Tradition
Patrick Atangan
ISBN: 1561633313
Ukiyo-e comic presentation of The Yellow Jar and Two Chrysanthemum Maidens.

I enjoyed these, but I felt that the presentation and the tales were rather flat.  I have felt this before about Japanese folktales, so I am absolutely sure that is an artifact of the traditional narrative telling of these stories, but it has to be said.  They're just not paced in a way that my western educated mind appreciates.  It's odd, because the stories are full of wild and crazy events, just like folktales and myths from everywhere, but the telling is distancing and depersonalizing.

The Yellow Jar takes up the majority of the book.  A fisherman finds an enormous beautiful jar with a sleeping woman inside.  He takes her home and buries the jar, and when she wakes, she reveals that she's a fae being who was tasked with marrying either the elephant, the ox, or the man (as a species).  She tried both the animals, but they were mean to her in different ways, and she doesn't want to even try with man, because she's seen them from afar and knows they're lying and horrible.  She can't go home without her jar, so she swears to marry whoever is kind and honest.  The fisherman pledges to be honest, and immediately lies about where her jar is and where he found her.  (Of course he does.) She finds out (of course she does) and flees, and is captured by a terrible demon lord.  He comes home to find her gone, and realizes it's his own stupid fault, and goes after her.  Because the plot demands it, true love (and the elephant and the ox, back for a cameo) win over the terrible demon.

The Two Chrysanthemum Maidens is short and sweet, but odd.  A monk tends to his rock garden, until two raggedy-ass weeds invade.  For some reason, he can't quite bring himself to root them up, and that fall they blossom into two beautiful flowers - well, one really beautiful yellow flower, and one pale and sickly white one.  The monk uproots the yellow one and takes it to a special place in the garden and tends it, while the abandoned white one droops and mourns and slowly dies - until a passing nobleman sees her beauty, uproots her, and uses her image for his family crest.  The odd thing is that the flowers are presented in the text straightforwardly as little miniature women, but no one actually in the story treats them as anything but flowers.  There is probably some meta-commentary there to be made, but I can't be bothered today.

As a note on the artwork, it was overall very beautiful and inviting to see, but the hands of all of the people are quite peculiar - almost like tentacles or like they're all out of joint.  Once I noticed that, it was hard to see anything else for a good long while.

I don't know if I'll bother to hunt down the second volume.