There’s a certain point at which a story integrates so tightly with its message, world, and characters, that it becomes impossible to pull them apart without losing something. I think in a lot of the despair and struggle for creation that the previous volumes have delivered there remains this thin film that lets you peel apart the work in certain places. As Matsumoto inverts that creative process however, Tokyo These Days volume 3 eludes the reader’s ability to separate it. What you see, at the end of this volume, is what you get. Shiozawa’s magazine gets published, the stories of the creators within are read and cherished, and one day continues to turn into the next somehow. Almost as if it were magic though, Matsumoto is able to effortlessly weave this story of passion and its place in the world into something that leaves no gaps or holes within.
In its entirety, Tokyo These Days volume 3 is pervaded by an impossible feeling through its symbolism, something that feels so far out of reach despite your attempts to chase after it. In a sense, Chosaku’s pursuit of his umbrella in this volume is the perfect example of Matsumoto’s creative vision of the work. There’s this… hunt for creation which plagues characters like Chosaku and Aoki- and even Kusakari to an extent-, where the more they drive themselves towards their goal the further they drift from it. While Aoki’s is depicted in a different fashion, Chosaku’s is taken to mean his umbrella and the rain that weighs upon him in that moment. His creativity has slipped through his fingers into the world, and diving through the swirling masses he finds himself able to grasp it once more.
While it’s not an empty boast as to understanding a lot of what Matsumoto puts down in regards to his indirect commentary in moments like this, I do also feel like the experience of understanding them yourself is more important than your ability to grasp the very concept. However you choose to interpret pieces like Shiozawa’s ability to talk to birds, or the types of weather that surround creativity and its experience, the importance is in how you engage with and experience it. Matsumoto endeavours to say very little in exact terms precisely because the experiences vary such a great deal. You could be Aoki, who found a breakthrough by bouncing off of rock bottom. You could be Kusakari who finds clarity in his own failures. You could even be Miki-sensei living it up at a dive bar or Nekoyama making a new manga after twenty years.
There is no limit to creativity, its suffering, and its euphoria. There is no hole deep enough to contain it, nor no mountain tall enough to surpass it. Ultimately, though, despite its incredible existence, the sun will still shine and you will still hunger. A new face will arrive while you reacquaint with others, new challenges will appear that dwarf the previous ones- your creation will mean nothing in the next moment. But that’s what drives you to it. That singular moment. All that suffering, all that excitement and the struggles and emotions are for that singular moment that appears. And so, it too, will pass.
Tokyo These Days volume 3 puts the perfect cap on the series as a whole. Success has been found, mountains have been scaled and characters changed forever. Not necessarily for better or for worse, but undeniably, changed. The magazine sells well through a miracle of passion. There’s lovers and haters, dreamers and naysayers- but what about Shiozawa? Unblinking, the man moves onto the next step. It’s an incredible point that denies satisfaction or fairy tales, and presents his monumental struggle as… Tokyo These Days. Before I submit myself to a firing squad for that abhorrent pun though, I do want to finish up here. This story refuses a concrete ending or undeniable truth. In pursuit of creation there’s not such a convenient thing. There’s expectations, certainly, roadblocks, of course, but nothing so easy as a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s always what’s next. The next issue of a magazine, the next chapter to work on without your assistant, the next mangaka to feature in the work. The world waits for no man, and so you are compelled to move. Matsumoto provides yet another impossibly incredible work.
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