My father's almanac

My Father's Almanac (父の 暦, Chichi no Koyomi^?) is a manga written and illustrated by Jirō Taniguchi, and published by Shogakukan in 1994. Its first edition in Spanish was published in 2002 by the Planeta DeAgostini publishing house, under the Biblioteca Pachinko label, in three volumes.

Based on some personal experiences of the author, it is considered Taniguchi's work that best reflects the transformation of Japan during the postwar period through the story of a family. The work won the Ecumenical Prize at the Comic Book Festival of Angoulême (France) in 2001.

Plot

For many years Yôichi has not returned to his hometown and has found various pretexts, mostly professional, to avoid a visit. Only the death of his father will force him to return, but during his funeral, he attends with a certain sense of emotional detachment.

There he will rediscover his past and recall his childhood in his father's hairdressing salon, reliving tragic events, such as the fire that devastated the city in 1952 and precipitated the divorce between his parents, which completely changed his life and produced a deep resentment towards his father. His father is a virtual stranger for him, for whom he has not felt affection and whom he has come to consider as a mediocre and obscure being. Through blurred memories, comments from those close to his father, and photographs, the protagonist will rebuild a more complex image of his father while shedding new light on his relationship with him and his mother. of the.