Kamimura Kazuo's Manga 'Il parco dei cervi' Explores Cinema Obsession

A new edition of the manga 'Il parco dei cervi' by Suzuki Noribumi and Kamimura Kazuo has been published by Coconino Press in Rome in 2020. The 232-page volume, priced at €22, includes contributions by Giacomo Calorio and Paolo La Marca, who also served as translator and is considered Italy's foremost expert on Kamimura. The manga tells the story of Murase Takayuki, a frustrated assistant director, and Azusa Wakaba, a 17-year-old high school student and daughter of the late actress Azusa Fumiko, entangled with retired director Makiguchi Kenzō. Kamimura, born in 1940 and died in 1986, is known in Japan as 'Shōwa no eshi' (The painter of the Shōwa era). After graduating in design from Musashino University, he worked at the advertising agency Senkōsha in the early 1960s before entering comics. His influences include literature, poetry, and cinema, particularly Yasujiro Ozu, Billy Wilder, and Mike Nichols' 'Carnal Knowledge' (1970). The manga is described as a hypnotic blend of drawing, literature, and cinephilia, depicting obsession, lust, and greed with tragic consequences.