Shuna’s Journey is a beautiful artwork, not quite a comic and not quite an illustrated book, with about three illustrations per spread.
If you’ve seen Miyazaki’s movies this book will remind you of his movies. Several moments in his movies are pre-ordained in Shuna’s Journey: a young man leaving his village (Princess Mononoke), a rural prince’s distaste for urban human greed (Nausicaa), Weird Forest Spirit Stuff (Princess Mononoke), giant creatures.
While reading Shuna’s Journey, I felt a bit as if I was looking at storyboards for Princess Mononoke or Nausicaa. While Shuna’s Journey never became its own movie, just about every moment in Shuna’s Journey ended up in a Miyazaki movie.
I’m not sure exactly what this means, but I think it means that Miyazaki has very big ideas to tell us, in the form of very small or small-seeming moments and motifs.
The translator notes that while Miyazaki’s movies can lean towards a focus on European settings, Shuna’s journey is a tale of Asian origin, with the folktale that inspired Shuna’s Journey originating in Tibet.
In all, if you love Miyazaki’s movies, you will like this book a lot. Again I’m not sure if I should call it a comic or manga or not - it’s kind of it’s own thing.
I was dedicated to finding this book on it’s first release day. Of all places, Target had a copy that I was able to reserve. It turns out that Target has a small manga section, which I might make more use of in the future! One thing that I liked about Japan when I visited was that I could go to a 7-11 and get snacks, shampoo, and also comics. I wouldn’t mind replicating this experience at Target.
Shuna’s Journey is new for us who read and speak English - originally published in 1983, it simply hadn’t been translated to English until now. It’s both hard and easy to believe that this book is 40 years old, given how much of Miyazaki’s work that it precludes. The book has a sense of eternal themes even when I don’t think of it’s original release date. I hope you read it! It’s a marvelous story and very beautiful.