Manga Review: Talk to My Back
Manga Librarian | Manga Librarian | July 15, 2022
Manga Librarian reviews Talk to My Back
This is a quiet and beautiful manga about what it means to be a mother and a wife. A gentle yet simmering contemplation of domestic womanhood, Talk to My Back shows what manga is capable of conveying. Using sparse visuals, this manga demonstrates both the joys and the tyranny of domesticity.
This manga is unquestionably art from start to finish. It uses the medium to convey so much longing and resentment. It tackles topics that are distinctly adult, with sincerity and deftness.
This is a manga I recommend for adults, to be able to see what manga is capable of, to expand their horizons. This is absolutely essential for any public or academic library to have on its shelf.
Reading this, I felt a distinct sensation of having read something profoundly personal. The protagonist is often faceless, the illustrations sparse and open. And yet there’s a tension broiling in each frame and page. And it’s not necessarily directed solely at the husband. It’s toward a society that is built around such an existence.
In all, I highly recommend purchasing this if your patrons are adults, or for your personal collection. It might serve as a curricular connection to works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” or The Awakening in a high school ELA course. That said, this is a work for adults about adults, and it might not necessarily resonate for audiences any lower than high school. This is why I prefer relevance to appropriateness- this is “appropriate” for all ages if you were to strictly think in terms of lack of nudity of cursing, but it isn’t relevant to younger readers.
This manga is unquestionably art from start to finish. It uses the medium to convey so much longing and resentment. It tackles topics that are distinctly adult, with sincerity and deftness.
This is a manga I recommend for adults, to be able to see what manga is capable of, to expand their horizons. This is absolutely essential for any public or academic library to have on its shelf.
Reading this, I felt a distinct sensation of having read something profoundly personal. The protagonist is often faceless, the illustrations sparse and open. And yet there’s a tension broiling in each frame and page. And it’s not necessarily directed solely at the husband. It’s toward a society that is built around such an existence.
In all, I highly recommend purchasing this if your patrons are adults, or for your personal collection. It might serve as a curricular connection to works such as “The Yellow Wallpaper” or The Awakening in a high school ELA course. That said, this is a work for adults about adults, and it might not necessarily resonate for audiences any lower than high school. This is why I prefer relevance to appropriateness- this is “appropriate” for all ages if you were to strictly think in terms of lack of nudity of cursing, but it isn’t relevant to younger readers.