It was a story about emotion but also about living in two different cultures. I tried to reflect that in the father's opinion, but I didn't mean to present him as bigoted. The old generations are, I think, a bit influenced by the media and this goes more straight to career women in their 30s. The thing is, young couples need more overall support to be able to have both careers and family lives, but the system isn't as developed. I was asked by some elderly relatives and people in their 60s to come back to Japan and have kids there. In fact, Yumiko's parents being divorced creates a very clear split we can infer something of the parents' relationship, but all we see is Yumiko with her father (in flashbacks or through her words and thoughts) or Yumiko with her mother.

The theme of a daughter's relationship with her parents, specifically the individual relationship with her mother and then separately with her father, comes up in a big way here. I suppose the beginning of something, which eventually turned into this graphic novel, had already started there. Around ten years later, as I was studying at art colleges here in the U.K., I was made to think hard of my roots and identity but I wasn't ready to explore it. for about three years and thinking of enrolling into a Japanese university afterwards, but I found myself more comfortable in the U.K. I left Japan when I was 16 years-old back in 1991.

How old were you when you left Japan to live in England? When did this book begin to develop in your mind?

Just so happens by fumio obata