No Refuge

Though all of the stories I’ve read in Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s Good-Bye are impressive meditations on some of humanity’s darker features, the succinct paranoia of “Sky Burial” immediately gripped me hardest. Perhaps it’s because of story’s ambiguity. We’re shown that the main character, Nogawa, is deeply troubled by something, but what that something is and how it came to be remains untold. More importantly, Tatsumi never explicitly touts Nogawa’s fearful vision of reality as truth. Instead, we’re left to question whether any vultures ever actually appear in this city, and whether Nogawa is as innocent as he claims to be. We’re also left to grapple with a weird meeting of urban space and natural reclamation. Tatsumi inverts the usual model recommending nature as a place to retreat and recuperate from the stresses of urban living. That is, Nogawa’s fear comes from the natural world, the animal world, encroaching on his small concrete lot with ever increasing audacity. The final panel, with its committee of vultures and its boarded up house, shows Nogawa’s vision of death bearing down on him. Rather bleak stuff.