[#CreativeAwardsReview] Masahiko Kihara's 'Drifting Family': Storyboards Dancing at Your Fingertips
When we read manga, what are we actually moving?
Normally, we move our eyes from panel to panel.
We turn the page and advance to the next scene that already exists on the paper.
What about anime, then?
Masahiko Kihara's 'Drifting Family' is a work that seems to answer that question just a little bit.
This work features cuts reminiscent of storyboards, arranged vertically on a note article.
As the reader scrolls down the screen, past cuts disappear off the top, and the next cuts, previously hidden at the bottom, gradually reveal themselves.
Move slowly, and you create a pause.
Send it quickly, and the scene accelerates.
Stop your finger, and the video stops; move back up, and you can rewind.
In other words, this is not a video where you receive a completed duration of time.
It is a manually played article where time is born only as much as the reader scrolls.
Vertical scrolling manga itself is not rare.
However, this work has a special quality unique to the 'storyboard' format.
Storyboards are usually an intermediate step for creating video, not something shown to an audience as a finished work.
Because of this, the simplified characters, rough lines, and text indicating actions don't just look unfinished; they look like a 'blueprint leading to a finished film'.
Furthermore, the thick black borders surrounding the cuts feel more like frames of movie film than manga panels.
Even if the drawings themselves are simple, being placed inside those frames makes them feel like scenes cut from a larger cinematic work.
The work itself is truly wonderful.
The Conan who isn't the famous detectivestyle characters and mecha move around with a clatter, making it fun just to look at.
I especially fell in love with Kihara's round yet military-style mecha designs.
The story is also a classic, where each episode leaves behind a new mystery while ultimately landing the 'two drifting people' into a literal 'drifting family.' Beneath the lighthearted gags, information about a mysterious girl, two search parties, and a man and woman hiding their identities is revealed little by little.
You can enjoy it with your guard down, and the title reveal is clean and satisfying✨
The fun lies in how, centered around one high-quality story, the reader can fill in the gaps in their own mind to imagine the finished video that isn't actually drawn.
It lies in how the everyday action of 'scrolling' on note has been transformed into a playback mechanism for moving a storyboard.
That is where the charm of this work lies.
In four-panel manga, your gaze jumps between panels.
In this work, your fingers carry you between panels.
Beyond the content of the story, pay attention to how your own hands are creating time.
Try reading it while focusing on that sensation.
This is less about 'reading' and more about a strip of film that you 'spin with your own fingers'.