Yukichi Yamamatsu, autore giapponese di manga, nel 2004 visitò l'India allo scopo di promuovere le sue opere. Da quel viaggio, Yamamatsu nel 2008 trasse Stupid guy goes to India, un esilarante fumetto tradotto ora in inglese, da leggersi rigorosamente da destra a sinistra. Riporto la recensione di Kavita Lal, pubblicata ieri da Hindustan Times:
'Obsessed as we are about how the Anglo-American writer sees facets of India and presents them to readers in that part of the world, this comic book description of a Japanese man’s dealings with contemporary India is a change. Yukichi Yamamatsu visited India for the first time in 2004 as a 56-year-old manga artist with a sole purpose: to sell manga comic books in a country that doesn’t have them. This conceit forms the basis of Yamamatsu’s comedy routine as a stranger in a strange land. This isn’t a book for those looking for confirmation about India being an ‘!ncredible’ land for tourists. “I had no interest in sightseeing, so I refused,” Yamamatsu tells us in a panel about shooing away a hotel guide. “But no matter how much I said ‘no’, he stubbornly persisted. So I kept saying it in as many ways as I could.” (...) As soon as Yamamatsu lands in Delhi airport, he starts his adventures that increasingly resemble classic cross-cultural slapstick comedy. There is much situational comedy, heightened by the fact that Yamamatsu never stepped out of Japan before. Standard tropes such as clingy touts, ever-following beggars, smarmy streets and smarmier public toilets acquire some freshness courtesy cartoon depictions. (...) Some of the gags are repetitive. (...) But Yamamatsu’s depictions of most of the people he encounters as shouting - making him think they are angry at him for no reason - is funny. (...) The right to left reading of the panels takes a while getting used to. But Yamamatsu and his Indian publishers are successful in getting many of us our first taste in the mainstream manga format. This story is as much about a funny foreigner bumbling through Delhi as it is about how an Indian city can be for unsuspecting tourists'.
Aggiornamento del 25 marzo 2022: nel 2014 è stato pubblicata la traduzione di un nuovo volume di Yamamatsu, Stupid guy goes back to India.
