Anno’s art looks consistently professional, even with the series being one of her earlier endeavors. He discourages Noko’s expressed wish to become thin and pretty as her true desirability is in her silky skin and warm body.

Overall a very good quality service from this seller and I would not hesitate to recommend this seller. You see this portrayed constantly at the beginning of the book as Noko fluctuates between using food as a self-soothing method and then absolutely hating herself for it later.We shouldn’t expect that Moyocco Anno will change the world with this small graphic novel, but we might as well hope.

I honestly don’t know how someone with Noko’s problems would react to this manga; they might find it very insightful and encouraging, or they might find it critical and discouraging. Her sex life with her boyfriend, the bullying she experiences at work, her abortive attempts at self-control…all show that Noko is victimized by her own lack of self-confidence and hatred of her own appearance. The fascinating difference between Clothes and Okazaki’s Helter Skelter is that while the story of Helter follows a model whose profession demanded the physical perfection of an ideal, the occupations of the characters in Clothes are much more ordinary. This is emphasized my her co-worker, Mayumi Tachibana, seemingly her exact opposite in personality and body type.He fears strong-willed and confident women like his mother, so he begins pushing Noko away when she tries to lose weight. Size determines the ways in which women are perceived to the extreme: because Noko occupies too much space she must be sloppy, she must be the cause of mistakes at work, without question.

Throw in a conspiracy theorist co-worker, a mysterious man who is a ‘chubby chaser’, a mysterious weight loss clinic and office politics and you have the story.I've meet enough people, (and been through personally), while being in hospital, who are going through this, and most are not deadly thin.

When I draw a woman or a chair or a political ideology, I can reasonably only investigate a fractional portion of her/its multitude of properties. In an interesting turn, Anno presents three other minor point-of-view characters (Mayumi, Noko’s antagonist co-worker; Saito, Noko’s boyfriend; and Kiyo, Noko’s dietician), allowing the world to be fleshed out in still more interesting ways. We shouldn’t expect that Moyoco Anno will change the world with this small graphic novel, but we might as well hope. Noko’s piling misfortunes as well as her desperation to lose weight and regain what little happiness she had managed to obtain makes for a compelling read, and Anno avoids making the story feel like a sadist tale about a woman struggling and failing with life.Noko makes resolves to lose weight in a healthy and safe manner, which is shot down by her boyfriend since high school Toshikiko Saito. We’ve already pored over the Eisner nominees for new series and graphic novels; now, let’s take a look at the contenders for the year’s top honors in manga.