By Lars Martinson
Pliant Press via Top Shelf Productions, 128 pp.

American Daniel Wells’ new assistant teaching job takes him to the remote Japanese town of Tonoharu, where the next foreigner is a half hour away and few fellow colleagues can be bothered to elaborate on the terrifying duty of teaching Japanese junior high students. Isolated by land and language, Daniel struggles to connect with the only other foreign teacher in the area and feel his way through Japanese daily life. And yet, there is one more group of outsiders in Tonoharu: a family of wealthy eccentrics whose parties set the town afire with gossip and whose presence proves irresistibly mysterious.

More roman a clef than graphic fiction, Lars Martinson’s Tonoharu is a beautifully subtle and moving look at a life on the edge of isolation. Ostensibly leaning heavily upon the author’s own three years as an assistant English teacher in Japan, the story aches with reality and personal experience with only a twist here and a pinch there (the ubiquitous JET teaching program drops a letter to become the AET teaching program) to allow for the pretense of fiction. Those with Japanese living experience will nod knowingly at the fine details that Martinson has captured (Burnable trash sorting! Questionable English signs!) but ultimately, the tale is an emotional trip as much as a physical one.

All cultural details aside, Tonoharu is a one-man show. Daniel is the perfect intelligent sad-sack, managing to be simultaneously pitiable, genuine and insightful without ever seeming trite. Martinson’s well paced panels and occasional usage of untranslated Japanese conjure up his predicament, and Daniel’s own awkward self-possession endears the reader to him all the more. Friendless, linguistically challenged and bored senseless, Daniel’s days become exercises in sleeping, smoking and watching television as he is alternately marginalized and ignored by his colleagues and singular fellow AET. It’s certainly no adventure comic, but the result is far more powerful.

That said, perhaps the only weakness of the first installment is just that: the book is a first installment. Martinson soundly establishes Daniel and his vaguely depressing lifestyle, but the brevity of the work allows for only two appearances on the part of the eclectic foreigners of Tonoharu, far too few to hand us any hints as to their origin, motives or even characters. There’s plenty of mood and emotion but little plot; Tonoharu is refreshing in its truthful banality but also a little on the quiet side.

Martinson’s art benefits from an effective, eminently workable setup: four panels per page, each laid out in the same crisp manner with perfectly symmetrical gutters. The illustrations contained within are an exercise in ink intensity, as most settings are rendered with a loving layer of cross hatching, lining and more lining. Although simple, Martinson manages to wring an impressive array of emotions out of his sparse character designs, a must in work supported mainly by its dynamic lead.

Despite a few plot shortcomings, there’s much to love about Tonoharu. Flush with reality and supported by a well-done lead, the book sails easily into its second installment as one can’t help but hope for Daniel Wells. The mystery may not tempt you onward, but the beauty of the work certainly will, as Martinson’s careful planning and execution boost Tonoharu into the highest circle of comics.

Volume one of Tonoharu is available now.