Hey thanks for reading the culmination of our week-long spotlight on Spanish-Japanese manga creator Ken Niimura. We’ve had a lot of fun talking to Ken, reading his new work Never Open It, and now, even translating and publishing his short story Spicy Tuna for the first time! This comic was a Japanese doujinshi, published for Comiket in 2011, meant to act as an introduction to Ken’s work for possible publication at Shogakukan’s IKKI Magazine. However, instead of more stories of La Tuna, IKKI commissioned a wide variety of new short stories from Ken, and those works became his book Henshin, published by Shogakukan in Japan, and Image Comics in North America.
You’d know all this if you listened to Mangasplaining #54, go check it out now. ;)
You also might want to go listen to the bonus interview we conducted with Ken about the genesis of this comic, and the Spanish tradition of La Tuna and how it’s performed in Tokyo, over at the MSX website.
Usually this sort of thing would be behind a subscriber paywall, we’ve produced a few months of weekly comics so far! But we’re thrilled to share this with all of you, and shine a spotlight on our friend Ken’s work. So please enjoy, but consider signing up for a paid subscription to keep reading in future? Cheers.
Also, you can read this comic online at http://www.mangasplainingextra.com, or in the new Substack app for iOS (Android coming soonish).
Without any further ado, let’s read the manga (left to right, the North American reading order, for this one):
So what did you think? Leave us a comment! We’d love to hear from you.
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