A Gray Day with Audiobooks and Manga
A gray, quiet day in Chicago. No art-making, just manga, audiobooks, and Danmitsu’s mysterious menagerie.
Today in Chicago, the sky was gloomy and gray all day—and whenever the weather’s like that, my mind and body feel just as heavy. I want to be preparing for next month’s Taipei Art Book Fair, but, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything.
So instead, I spent the day listening to the audiobook of Kokuhō (the Japanese novel I’ve been hooked on lately) and finally treated myself to a manga I’ve been wanting to read for a while: Danmitsu by Seino Toru, which I downloaded on Kindle.
The manga is about Seino’s real-life relationship with his wife, Danmitsu—an actress and former gravure idol known for her mysterious, sensual presence. Told from Seino’s perspective, the story is surprisingly down-to-earth and refreshingly sweet. As a longtime Danmitsu fan, I had to read it!
There were rumors that she kept some pretty eccentric pets, but I had no idea just how eccentric: she has three birds, a snake, even a sloth. Her deep love for animals and extreme collecting habits are truly wild—and, if my own partner were like that, I might feel a bit overwhelmed! But Seino, while clearly surprised, slowly builds a bond with her little zoo over time. It made me realize they’re a perfect match in their own unique way.
There’s no over-the-top romance or drama in this manga—just two people quietly figuring out how to live alongside each other, and that subtle rhythm of their lives is what makes it so compelling.