現在，ＮＨＫで放送中の「半分，青い。」では，くらもちふさこさんのマンガがとりあげられています。８０年代の少女漫画家といえばすぐにうかぶ作家さんの一人で，好きだった方も多いと思います。他には小椋冬美さん，いくえみ綾さん，吉田まゆみさんなどが懐かしく思い出されます。そんな素晴らしい漫画家さんの中でも，なぜか自分がずっと読み続けたのは岩館真理子さんでした。一番の理由はやはり，どの作品にもうっとりするような美しさと，そこはかとない可笑しみがあふれているからだと思います。
In a TV drama “Hanbun Aoi” which is currently broadcast by NHK, some manga illustrated by Kuramochi Fusako has an important role in the plot. She is one of the great manga authors who were very popular in 80’s, and I know many people loved her works. Her name reminds me of other ones like Ogura Huyumi, Ikuemi Ryo, Yoshida Mayumi and so on. However the best manga author who has continuously made me want to read her works is, I don’t know the exact reason, Iwadate Mariko. The first reason why, I guess, is her every work is full of fascinating beauty and subtle humor.
岩館作品には，しばしばダンディな壮年の男性が登場します。「遠い星をかぞえて」という作品の主人公は，ふたみという名の中学生の女の子ですが，彼女には庄介というやたらと彼女にやさしくしたがるおしゃれな髭のおじさんがいます。脚本家としてすでに成功している庄介ですが，早くに妻を亡くして子どもがいないためでしょうか，ふたみに会おうとしばしば一家を訪れては，ふたみの両親や二人の姉から煙たがられているのでした。庄介の亡くなった妻というのは，ふたみの母親であるつるこの妹でした。ふたみに直接血のつながりがあるわけでもないはずの庄介の訪れをことさらに嫌がっているのは，ふたみの母，つるこであり，ふたみの目からみて不自然なほどに冷たい態度をとるのでした。ある日，ふたみは両親の部屋で一枚の写真を見つけます。そこには若き日の庄介とその妻，そして彼らの子どもらしき赤ん坊が写っており，ふたみはふとした疑問を抱くのですが……。
秘めた想いを抑えきれず，姑息なことまでしてふたみに近づこうとする庄介の姿は，滑稽でありながら切なく，涙を誘います。
こんな素敵なキャラクターに，岩館さんの新作でまた出会いたいです。
You can often see middle aged dandies in Iwadate’s works. The main character in “Tooi Hoshi wo Kazoete (Counting distant stars)”is a junior high school girl named Hutami, and she has an fashionable uncle wearing a mustache, his name is Shousuke, who always makes a great fuss of her. Shousuke who is already a successful playwright somehow visits Hutami’s house to see her so often, maybe because he lost his wife when he was still young and has no children, that her parents and her two sisters try to shun him. His deceased wife was the sister of Hutami’s mom named Tsuruko. The one who particularly hates Shousuke’s visits most is Tsuruko and she always gives the cold shoulder to Shousuke, who is not related to Hutami by blood, somehow unnaturally for Hutami. One day, Hutami finds a photo in her parents’ room. People on the photo are Shousuke and his wife who were still young and a baby who was maybe their own, and Hutami begins to harbor a doubt about…….
It is comical but heartbreaking, or even moving you to tears that Shousuke tries to approach Hutami unable to control his feelings hidden in his heart, even using a stopgap measure.
I’d like to encounter such an attractive character in a new work of Iwadate Mariko.
