I’m not sure what this book’s about. It’s set in a small rural Japanese town and follows the lives of various kids in a home. What sort of home? Good question - it’s never explained! It’s not quite an orphanage but the kids don’t live with their parents because of their circumstances (absence, addiction, other reasons) - so a kind of social care home? It’s not a stumbling block to reading this book but it’d be useful to at least understand the framing of the story, particularly as it highlights a negative side to Japanese society that most people don’t see.
There’s also a fat bald man in a nappy who doesn’t seem able to say anything besides the “Row Row Row Your Boat” song and it’s never clear who he is or what he’s doing there. So I guess this place also looks after mentally disabled adults?
The book doesn’t have a story - it just follows the various kids of this place behaving like kids. The title references a broken Datsun Sunny 1200 that the kids use to act out their fantasies. Unless you find that kind of thing compelling, you’ll be as bored as I was.
Taiyo Matsumoto’s art is an interesting blend of typical manga imagery and an almost child-like style - it’s unusual but also skilful; I like it. And the book does get momentarily intriguing when one of the older kids goes to visit his deadbeat dad and we see why some of them are in the home to begin with. I feel like this is what the book should’ve been about entirely rather than the pointless meanderings of the very young kids. Oh well.
Sunny, Volume 1 is more coherent than the other book of Matsumoto’s I’ve read, No. 5, but it’s also similarly unexciting and flat. I just don’t think this creator is for me.
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