Rain Taxi features My Picture Diary

Picture a scene of crushing silence. The drawing depicts a familiar corner of the kitchen, her kitchen, in low light, where she sits in her usual spot. Alone, she rests her chin sleepily on a tired hand and closes her eyes. Across from her, a child’s table setting remains from another meal thanklessly consumed. A second plate lingers nearby, its fork strewn aside as if eaten in a quick bite by someone on the way to something better. Outside the window behind her, rain patters on the balcony in steady taps, and instead of finishing up the dishes, this mother stops to sit and listen. The shading on her face lets us in a little deeper: Drawn like the rain outside, faint diagonal pen strokes over her eyes hint at storms within.

Written and drawn in periodic installments throughout 1981, My Picture Diary is an intimate, often devastating record of Fujiwara Maki’s life as a housewife navigating motherhood through an abusive marriage steeped in societal sexism and mental instability. Maki’s husband, referred throughout only as “Daddy,” is a tired manga artist who suffers from depressive episodes that occasionally turn violent. He’s often depicted with his eyes closed and his face downcast, sometimes tinkering with a vintage camera. In a deliciously sarcastic entry about his professional life, Maki writes how Daddy “works (?) from the time we go to bed until dawn . . . When he’s sitting silently at his desk, he’s usually doing ‘research’ about cameras.” He’s hardly there, but his presence is deeply felt; Maki is emotionally shackled, living in quiet fear that she’s not properly playing her housewife role—though she cooks for him, collects an allowance from him, and asks him for permission to do things for herself, like go to the cinema.

My Picture Diary is not without its upbeat entries, although they frequently feel like Maki’s attempts to find something good to write about.

Check out the full review here!