When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. In any war conflict, the most vulnerable victims are always children. Witnessing barbarism and destruction through their eyes is doubly tragic, due to the contrast between their innocence and the devastating reality to which they are unfairly exposed.
“Yaya’s Journey”written by Jean-Marie Omont and Patrick Marty, and drawn by Golo Zhao, is an exciting story whose beginning places us in the same place and time from which it also started. “The Sun’s empire” (JG Ballard, 1984), Shanghai in 1937, the year in which Japan, just at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War, bombed the city. As in Ballard’s work, which showed us the starkness of that conflict through the odyssey of young Jim Graham, Omont and Marty put us in the shoes of Yaya and Tuduo, two children from very different social classes, but united because of these dire circumstances.
This comprehensive first volume brings together the first three stories in the series, “The escape”, “The prisoner” y “The circus”, originally edited in France by Fei and Dargaud. It should be pointed out that ECC has published this work in its editorial line Kodomo, since “Grandma’s Journey” It is a comic designed for the little ones. However, we are facing a reading for all audiences, which can be consumed and enjoyed by anyone in search of an entertaining and exciting story.
The war scenario helps Omont and Marty to develop an entertaining and deep adventure story with clear reminiscences of some of the Japanese anime classics. It is impossible, while reading, not to think of Isao Takahata or Hayao Miyazaki, the all-powerful founders of Studio Ghibli. The authors achieve a perfect balance between drama and adventure, which is inevitably reminiscent of series like Heidi and Marco, also introducing a fantastic element: Yaya, the main girl, can talk to animals. In fact, the one who tells us the story is Pipo, the sparrow that accompanies her, an endearing character who, among so much desolation, gives the story a fabulous air and who works, at many times, as comic relief. I want to think that the choice of that bird as the animal that guides the children is not free. In many cultures, including China, the sparrow was attributed positive qualities, being a symbol of good luck. But paradoxically, in China, during Mao Zedong’s rule, they were exterminated to the point of virtual extinction because they were considered a plague. Pipo and the children are, after all, fragile creatures at the expense of the whims of human brutality.
to build that atmosphere “Ghiblian” Golo Zhao, a Chinese artist who has managed to fit the canons of the French bande desinée with the style of manga, contributes enormously, turning “Yaya’s Journey” in a good sample of that hybridization that is more and more frequent. His style is elaborate, dynamic in his staging and with precious attention to detail. Precisely that detail, excessive at times, causes our attention to focus too much on the backgrounds, to the detriment of the characters and the action, generating somewhat confusing vignettes at a chromatic level. However, that does not prevent this series, which consists of three complete volumes, from being an ideal choice for those little readers who want to enjoy a good adventure comic with a historical background.
