Hirotaka Nakagawa's Sumo Boy with the help of Yoshifumi Hasegawa's art brut illustration style delivers his moves with brash panache. The boy-saves-girl-from-mean-nasty-bully plot is about a lean (and conventional and gender stereotyped) as it gets, but the colorful, urban spectacles are a feast for the eyes. Hasegawa gives us in rough black outlines and bold raucous colors the pageantry of Japan's national sport, the cheek-by-jowl city highrises, and the interior of a crowded noodle shop. If you were not already a fan of Japanese pop culture, it is not too late to answer Sumo Boy's clarion call, "Dosukoi!" Note: check your issues about gender equality and desires for peaceful conflict resolution at the door.
Hirotaka Nakagawa (author) and Yoshifumi Hasegawa (illustrator)
Sumo Boy
Hyperion, 2006
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