New Series: “Wouldn’t You Like to Drink at Home?” by Izumi Okaya begins!
For the inaugural episode, we visit the Okaya residence, welcoming the renowned novelist Kanako Nishi, known for works like “Yellow Elephant” and “Sayonara!” Her recent non-fiction book, “Kumo o Sagasu,” depicting her personal battle with illness, has also stirred significant discussions.
Join the conversation between these midlife writers as they share their current perspectives, accompanied by the scenes of a lively session of sipping orange wine.
Additionally, discover a featured snack from that day and get the recipe. This time, it’s the “Persimmon and Chrysanthemum Salad” (Recipe at the end of the article!)
INDEX
Exploring the Unique Cultures of the Novel and Manga Industries
Okaya: Do you drink orange wine? I received it as a gift when I held a solo exhibition. I couldn’t drink it even if I opened it by myself.
Nishi: Oh, it’s delicious. Isn’t this a good one?
Okaya: Literary editors know a lot about good souvenirs and stores.
Nishi: That’s true. But not for manga?

was born in Tehran, Iran in 1977. Won the Sakunosuke Oda Award in 2007 for “Tsutenkaku”, the Hayao Kawai Story Award in 2001 for “Fukurara”, and the Naoki Award in 2003 for “Saraba! Naoki Prize in 2003 for “Saraba! His many books include “Sakura,” “Round Table,” “Fisherman’s Port: The Meat Boy,” “Furu,” “Makuko,” “i,” and “Omajinai. His first nonfiction book, “Kumo wo Sasasu” (Searching for Spider), published in April of this year, has attracted a great deal of attention.
Okaya: In my case, meetings are often held at family restaurants, and I don’t often go to good restaurants. I don’t often go to nice restaurants. Maybe successful people do, but I don’t. Also, I rarely have a meeting before I start painting.
Nishi: Then, how do you start working?
Okaya: I send them an email and say, “Well, please go ahead and draw my name. So, when I work with people in the literary field, I often hear, “I came for a meeting, but was it okay if we just chit-chatted? What time is this?” It’s like that.
Nishi: I understand! If I were to do that, I would probably be more suited to manga. I don’t like that time of fluffy exploration, either.
Okaya: Work is not a commitment. I wonder if it’s okay to just buy me a drink.
Nishi: I understand. After a very lively conversation, about an hour later, I go to the restroom. And when you come back, the editor suddenly says to you, “So, Nishi-san, what are your plans right now? I don’t like that kind of atmosphere, so when we go out to eat, I say, “If you want to talk about work, let’s talk about it first.

INDEX
Embracing the Shift to the Older Side of Life
Nishi: I made my debut when I was in my 20s, and my editor was more than 10 years older than me, so I felt as if my older brothers were publishing my books. So when I said, “I want another drink! I would say, “I want another drink!” and the adults would say, “Oh, dear,” and take me to the bar. Then, when I was in my thirties or so, I started to feel like, “What’s that? The editor is younger than me. I started to think, “What?
Okaya: Young editors have no choice but to come along if they are asked to have a drink.
Nishi: That’s right. If they think, “Hey, maybe we are scary?” I was afraid of them, too.
Okaya: You are afraid that it will be considered power harassment.
Nishi : Yes, yes. So when I went out for a drink, I couldn’t drink as much as I used to when I was younger, so I was a little quiet. They would be like, “Mr. Nishi, would you like something to drink, ?
Okaya: Oh,
Nishi: I wondered if I had to get “service drunk” to take care of them (laugh), but I felt that getting drunk with young people would be a form of power harassment and that it would be hard for me, so I gradually stopped going out drinking. ‘I do my job well, so I don’t have to spend money there. Please take more young writers with you.
Okaya: The other day, the editor who had been in charge of me for a long time was going on maternity leave, so I was handed over to a younger editor, and she said, “Let’s have dinner at my place.
Nishi: Wow, it’s great to have dinner with Mr. Okaya, isn’t it?
Okaya: A few cartoonists got together, all middle-aged women, and there was one young editor there.
Nishi: Oh, that makes me nervous!
Okaya: So we were talking about menopause and stuff like that, and we were like, “Wah-ha-ha,” and I don’t think it was directly because of that, but she quit the company before she started working on my series. I couldn’t apologize because he quit, but I’m really sorry.
Nishi: It’s not that I was mean to him. But from a girl in her early twenties, she looks scary.

INDEX
Acknowledge Senior Responsibilities
Okaya: I am not good at acting like a senior or a junior. That’s why seniors don’t love me and juniors don’t adore me.
Nishi: You don’t take on the role of a senior to your juniors, do you? You use honorifics with your juniors.
Okaya: Yes, yes.
Nishi: There was a senior who was like that! (laughs) But now that he has won the “Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award,” he is “Mr. Ocaya” to the younger generation. Isn’t it hard for you?
Okaya: Oh, everyone around me is young! What should I do?(laughs) They don’t know how to pay smartly at a drinking party or how to get angry. I think it’s great that manga artists do it by hiring assistants or having a company.
Nishi: When I was young, there were times when I drank surrounded by older women, women of the same generation as ours now that I think about it, and they acted like aunts on purpose. They played their roles in the situation and made it easier for me to play the role of a junior-like character.
Okaya: People who do that are very kind.
INDEX
Unintentional Middle-Aged Man Behaviors
Okaya: People of the same generation who have worked at a company for a long time have grown up and have subordinates, don’t they? When I ask my female friends about this, they tell me that they never had a role model for a female boss, so when they try to act like one, they are shocked to realize that they are acting like an old man! Nishi: If I were a man, I would have to act like a man, too.
Nishi: If I were a man and in this position at this age, I would have done something wrong. Even now, when I go out for a drink with a young man, I try to be careful not to sexually harass him, but I still don’t feel confident about it.
Okaya: I have another friend who says that she makes more money than me and her husband is mainly responsible for raising the children. She, too, comes home and says, “Why aren’t you cleaning up? She sometimes says things like, “If you’re home, you can do it,” and I think, “I’m a bad old man! She said she sometimes thinks, “I’m a bad old man!”

Nishi: I understand. There is a novel by Naomi Alderman called “Power,” which has been made into a drama on Amazon Prime Video, about a future where women have the ability to discharge electricity into their bodies and have more physical power than men. In that story, there are women who end up doing the same things as men. Naomi said something along the lines of, “If women were in power, there would be no wars,” or something like that, that she is not comfortable with portraying women as beautiful in such an excessive way. She said that it is not about gender, but about how power is used.
Okaya: Oh,
Nishi: By the way, I sometimes meet Mr. Shinbo Minami*, who is very funny, soft-spoken, kind, and not at all arrogant. Nowadays, such men may be normal, but living as a man of that generation, I wonder how I could have become like Mr. Shinbo.
Okaya: That’s right. Everyone is a martial artist. Fistfights in the Golden Gai were the norm.
Nishi: That was the era, and that was the way they were educated. They said, “What a man should be like! But even if you were a man in that era, I don’t think you would have gotten into fights. I really respect you for that.
Okaya: Yes?
Nishi: You are always so flat, no matter where you go. I think we would have read the atmosphere and fought each other (laughs).
*Shinbo Minami…… illustrator and essayist. Along with his close friends Genpei Akasegawa, Kosaburo Arashiyama, and Shigesato Itoi, he led the subculture of the Showa period.
INDEX
Crafting a Cozy Space: Nishi’s Innate Skill
Okaya: When I was unable to go out due to the Corona disaster, I thought, “I want to go to an uncomfortable drinking party. At the end of a lively party with lots of people, I’d be like, “So, can I have some of that fried chicken?” and saying something like that, I thought it was surprisingly fun.
Nishi: Why is that?
Okaya: It is interesting to be in a place where the tension is so high that it is completely different from my own. Also, when you are in a place full of people, you feel like you are part of the group.
Nishi: That’s interesting. In the so-called literary world, people are usually liberal and their political stances are close, but when you go out into the world, for example, there is a completely different world, isn’t there? I think talking with people with different opinions is very important.
Okaya: I don’t have many opportunities to get to know new people now, so I would like to talk with people from Gen-Z. I’m nervous, though. I’d like to talk with Gen Z. I’m nervous, though.
Nishi: I’m learning something new, and it’s very important for me to talk with the people I meet there. It is fun to be together with people who are in completely different environments from me, just because we have something in common that we like. In a way, the same may be true in the world of literature and art.

Okaya: You never seem to feel “awkward” wherever you go. We once passed each other in an underpass in Shinjuku. You know how we passed each other once before on an underground passageway in Shinjuku? and wave to her.
Nishi: What, why can’t you do that? You mean you are nervous?
Okaya: I think too much about whether I should talk to him or not. Nishi-san has a great spontaneity when it comes to that kind of thing.
Nishi: I have a hard time thinking about what the other person will think or “Is it rude? Nishi: I have a hard time thinking about what the other person will think or whether it is rude or not. When I was younger, for example, I had the “muscle” to respond to compliments with modesty, but nowadays, when I receive compliments, I just say, “Oh, thank you.
Okaya: I don’t think you are the muscle. I think you have the muscle to talk to me quickly, and I don’t have the muscle.
Nishi: You’re right, maybe I’m a muscle. If I like someone, I want to meet him or her, and I want to be friends with him or her, so I don’t think about “What if I say this to him or her and he or she withdraws from me? I don’t want to be afraid that if I don’t talk to them, they won’t talk to me. I’m going to die someday.
Okaya: I see. You have the ability to make yourself comfortable in your own place. Maybe I can’t get along with people because I think “it’s okay if I’m uncomfortable,” and I don’t dislike being uncomfortable so much. ……

Kanako Nishi

Kanako Nishi
I want to meet you”
Released on Thursday, November 2, 2013
Price: 1,540 yen (tax included)
Shueisha
Izumi Okaya

Izumi Okaya
Ame no shikkoto” (The things that rain does not do) 1 & 2
Sale on December 12, 2013 (Tuesday)
Price: 880 yen each (tax included)
Beam Comics (KADOKAWA)
Izumi Okaya

Izumi Okaya
Manga artist and illustrator. Debuted in 2011 with “Irodachi (Color Differences),” which captures everyday life with a unique sensibility. His books include “Sukimameshi,” “Zoku Sukimameshi,” “Gohan no Jikkuri 1 & 2,” “Mono Suru Hito 1, 2 & 3,” “Mitsuba Dori Shotengai de,” and the essay comic “Ooatte ga Yona Yona De” in which he asks popular authors about their ideal “last supper. In 2022, he won the 26th Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize for Short Stories for his two works “Itoshi wo” and “Shirakiren wa Kirei Sasanai”.