In Clothes Called Fat

Re-Read Review: Warnings for sexual and unsexual nudity, emotional eating, bulimia, shaming during sex, workplace bullying, cheating, something like a sugar daddy thing IDK, and forced eating.
One of the first Josei titles I ever picked up I think, this book (for all its warnings) is a nostalgic reread for me. The one thing that really jumped out at me was how, despite everything happening feeling like the real world, this book felt like a horror title. I'm a bit on the fence on if I would call it body horror. On the one hand, nothing feels monstrous, but there is a lot of haggard looking bodies. So the body horror of the reality of society's obsession with thinness? I feel like this is not a special sort of insight, but what can I say, I don't feel like I caught on to this the first time I picked it up.
Even without that realization this book felt like a real game changer in my reading because I don't think I had ever heard of Josei before. And while I don't ID as a woman anymore, and demographics are a bit full of shit, I really appreciate that this kind of manga exists. I'm even happier now that it feels like the translation of Josei titles has increased. And, moving away from this as a manga, but even as a comic book this felt like something completely different from anything else I had read up to that point.
My background with this book aside, let's get back onto script and look at the creator's biography. Moyoco Anno has written a few manga series including Sugar Sugar Rune, Happy Mania, and Flowers & Bees among others. The only one I'm kind of interested in picking up as of this moment is actually Insufficient Direction, which is a memoir like story about Moyoco's husband Hideaki who created Neon Genesis Evangelion. Apparently, according to Wikipedia, she has been on work hiatus since 2008 for health reasons. But in October apparently someone announced that her manga Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen will be the first Japanese manga to be adapted into a Broadway musical. Interesting!
Flipping over to the Goodreads' description:" From the pen of Moyoco Anno comes a stunning tale of self-image and self-loathing. In Clothes Called Fat details the lives of young women earnestly revealing the struggles women may have with their bodies and sexuality.
Noko appears to be living a great life, she's got a good job and a loving boyfriend, but beneath a thin veneer is a young woman who is struggling with her self-image and self-confidence as she fights to keep her weight down. To Noko, being 5 pounds overweight means being miles away from happiness in her lovelife and in her work-place."
The art style of this manga feels very quick and loose, similar to Erica Sakurazawa if you've ever picked up her work. I really think this start style, peppered with lots and lots of nudity I can't show, really reinforces the themes in the book.
As far as gender and sexuality goes this is a very cis hetero book. That, among other before mentioned reasons, is a very good reason this is not a must read by any means. That said, it does bring some struggles into sharp focus that are often brushed over that does effect people of all genders and sexuality.
Race is not touched on in this story and class is not really portrayed in any fulsome way.
Ability vs disability, in this case bulimia in particular, is obviously central to the story. And while I do think this book is anti diet culture and does not set out to endorse bulimia it doesn't feel like own voices or the portrayal of a genuine experience. It feels like fiction, which I guess is why I wanted to stress this realization of the horror elements of the story.
Originally I rated this book four out of five stars and I think I'm going to stick to that.

Original Review: Considering how much I enjoyed this work, I couldn't help but feel like it was a tad bit simplistic - especially when it came to the dialog. I have no idea if this was in translation or not, this is the first story I've read by Moyoco Anno and I will definitely be checking out more.

Weight, body image and eating disorders are issues that a lot of us deal with on a daily basis, so it's easy to trivialize. That said, I can't recall ever reading a comic that dealt with this subject so head on or in so mature a fashion before so this is certainly not a trivial work. And this story is Mature with a pretty capital M. This world is dark, this story is grotesque - there is a whole lot of unflattering/unsexualized nudity, and everyone is kind of stupid and/or shit to each other. There are no easy answers and there are no good people.

The artwork in Clothes Called Fat was really interesting as well. Loose and minimalist, it definitely pushed the feeling of grotesqueness to a whole new level. Noko's eyes get bigger and bigger as she gets smaller and smaller, really emphasizing the transformation she is undergoing. Using such exaggerated forms, Anno is drawing a lot of attention to the female form without exploiting it as a sexual object.

Deeply flawed in every way imaginable, the women of In Clothes Called Fat are their own kind of amazing. I've complained before about female on female hate before, and while this story includes a lot of the same relationships elements as say Absolute Boyfriend Volume 2, the exaction could not be more different. For one, the cast of ICCF is almost exclusively female, so there is a lot more going on then just one woman bullying another. Noko and Mayumi do not exist in a vacuum. While there is certainly no lack of men around them, a majority of the key characters are a wide assortment of female characters - each of which has their own perspective on what Noko should do.

Finally, focusing in on our main character Noko, I really appreciated how the ending worked out for her. At first it is very hard to like anything about Noko, and that is sort of the point. Anno is in many ways holding up a mirror to us and showing us a rather grotesque but all too realistic depiction of how people really act. But now having finished I find a lot to appreciate about Noko. Despite her less then stellar choices as she tries to lose weight, I really appreciate that they are all her own choices. Everyone around her has an opinion on how she should look and act but Anno gives Noko the strength to face her own daemons in her own way. While not protecting Noko from the harm she is doing herself, or encourage or condoning the girls character, Anno lets her live her life.