Jiro Taniguchi's "The Walking Man"

Don't expect your usual manga comic book characters here. There is no violence, no passion, no extreme expressions, no movement, and no action. Nothing ever happens in "The Walking Man". Or rather, everything happens. According to Jiro Taniguchi, life is in the details. Behind the seemingly mundane course of everyday existence lie the surprise discovery of beauty and the re-invention of the senses. The Walking Man is somebody who has managed to look at things from a distance. Taking in the whole picture, he observes, experiences and reflects on the extraordinary world of the ordinary.

In fact the book shows that nothing is usual or routine. The only thing that can become routine is the perception that we have of our surroundings and ultimately of our life. It's our perceptions that are distorted and it's on these false perceptions that we construct our lives. The Walking man is present and absent at the same time, managing to distil everything into few essential things that remain, that help him to arrive to a certain demystification and the so called simplicity of the wise. "Life is what happens to you when you're busy doing other things" John Lennon.

On the finacial crisis

"…Well, it's too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger than they were. A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that. Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the bank.

But - you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't breathe air, don't eat side-meat. They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat. It is a sad thing, but it is so. It is just so.

The squatting men raised their eyes to understand. Can't we just hang on? Maybe the next year will be a good year. God knows how much cotton next year. And with all the wars-God knows what price cotton will bring. Don't they make explosives out of cotton? And uniforms? Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling. Next year, maybe. They looked up questioningly.

We can't depend on it. The bank- the monster has to have profits all the time. It can't wait. It'll die. No, taxes go on. When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size…"

Extract from "The Grapes of Wrath", a novel written by John Steinbeck, published in 1939.