Award-winning mangaka known for Princess Jellyfish and Blank Canvas tries a new format for her dramatic josei stories with her webtoon A Fake Affair.
A Fake Affair
Akiko Higashimura
Webtoon
January 2021
“Huh, that art reminds me of Akiko Higashimura’s style,” I said to myself when I saw the promotional banner for A Fake Affair pop up on my Webtoon app. “I wonder who— OH MY GOD IT’S AKIKO HIGASHIMURA HERSELF? FOR REAL?” I tapped the first episode at the speed of light and proceeded to spend money on Webtoon Coins for the second time since I downloaded this app in high school so I could read the whole comic as fast as possible.
Higashimura is a veteran of the josei manga industry, published continuously since her debut in 1999 and often with multiple series going at once. Her autobiographical manga Blank Canvas: My So-called Artist’s Journey won the Manga Taisho and the grand prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in 2015, and Tokyo Tarareba Girls won an Eisner for Best US Edition of International Material- Asia in 2019. It’s surprising and fascinating to see someone so established and prolific within the manga world try her hand at a completely different style of comics.
While the format may be different, the story is firmly in Higashimura’s usual wheelhouse: Shoko, a single and aimless woman in her thirties, falls for a handsome younger man named Jobanni whom she meets on a plane to Korea, and due to a misunderstanding, leaves him under the impression that she’s a married woman having an affair. Meanwhile, her older sister is actually having an affair with a young MMA fighter. The bump on the head Shoko gets from Jobanni’s bag falling on her becomes a cute and chatty personification of her conscience, a technique Higashimura uses in Tokyo Tarareba Girls and Princess Jellyfish to similar comedic effect. Romance, drama, comedy, and the anxieties of adulthood, all hallmarks of Higashimura’s body of work. It feels like an Akiko Higashimura comic, even if it doesn’t quite look like one.
Higashimura adapts to the vertical compositions demanded by the webtoon format relatively well— the reading experience feels smooth and seamless, without anything that particularly stuck out to me as awkward. It’s also the first comic I’ve seen from her in full color instead of in grayscale. The digital coloring seems to be taking cues from Korean webtoons, and while it’s simple and unobtrusive in its flat, unrendered tones, the cool and desaturated colors often feel washed out, especially on the character’s faces. Still, the character designs and expressions are as skillful and meticulous as ever. I never found myself getting confused over who a character is, because each character’s appearance and clothing style is unique. Higashimura pays attention to details like fashion and mannerisms that make the characters look believable.
Despite moments of comedy, A Fake Affair feels more serious than previous Higashimura works I’ve read. The characters grapple with whether or not they’re doing the right thing for themselves and for the people around them, dealing with infidelity, deception, and illness. I loved how the sisters were set up as foils to each other: Yoko, married and not telling the guy she’s cheating on her husband with that she’s married. Shoko, single and lying to her new flame that she is actually married because she’s terrified he’ll lose interest in her if she’s not. Both of them dating younger men. The amount of trust the sisters have in each other while also not fully understanding each other’s life choices feels realistic and believable given their situations. The complicated, layered relationships between characters Higashimura manages to weave in a relatively short story are nothing short of incredible.
Higashimura is a master storyteller. Whatever shape her comics may take in the future, I’ll be eager to read them. I’m curious if the success of A Fake Affair (which was adapted into a live action drama in 2019) means other mangaka will be trying their hand at webtoon format as well, and if those comics will be available for international readers to enjoy.
