Just So Happens - Fumio Obata

A debut graphic novel of delicate beauty about outsiders and what we mean when we say 'home'. 'I still remember arriving in the city for the first time... It wasn't easy... But here, London, is my home.' Yumiko is a young Japanese woman who has made London her home. She has a job, a boyfriend; Japan seems far away. Then, out of the blue, her brother calls to tell her that her father has died in a mountaineering accident. Yumiko returns to Tokyo for the funeral and finds herself immersed in the rituals of Japanese life and death — and confronting a decision she hadn’'t expected to have to make. Just So Happens is a graphic novel by a young artist and storyteller of rare talent. Fumio Obata’'s drawing, in particular, is marvellous in its power and delicacy.