Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Three young women, a Japanese-American, a Korean, and a Singaporean, become friends at ‘Himawari House’, a Tokyo share-house and navigate the challenges of finding their place in a city which views them as outsiders.
Written and illustrated by Harmony Becker, who also created the artwork for George Takei’s memoir ‘They Called Us Enemy‘, this graphic novel is beautifully drawn and can easily be finished in a single sitting. But as soon as I found myself enjoying this fictional tale of three young women from different cultures trying to adjust to life in a foreign city, I decided to savour it instead, deliberately spreading it over three days.
Himawari House opens lovingly with a flashback in which Nao, the Japanese American protagonist, recalls the things she remembers about Japan and the box of trinkets she treasures to remind her of the country her family left behind. Although she quickly adjusts to life in America, she never quite feels at home, so she heads to Tokyo for a gap year to reconnect with her roots. There, she meets Korean Hyejung and Singaporean Tina at Himawari House, and the two women instantly accept her as a close comrade, sharing the joys and sorrows of living away from their families.
And that’s something I loved about Himawari House: these three young women helping each other out, chatting about their cultural differences, and becoming one another’s emotional support. Nao’s Japanese is barely serviceable, so she’s relieved to find that her flatmates, Hyejung and Tina, can speak English, even if they aren’t exactly fluent. Japanese brothers Shinichi and Masaki are their male housemates, and while Shinichi is cool, laid-back, and friendly, his younger brother is grouchy, barely ever speaking to the women.
The first chapter, titled I Do Not Know Where Singapore Is, instantly made me smile because Tina speaks Singlish, the informal, colloquial English spoken in Singapore. I’m familiar with many of its little quirks because my first cousins live in the island nation and I’ve been there a bunch of times. Singaporeans have a habit of ending all sorts of sentences with “lah.” “Okay, lah!”, “Can, lah!”, “No problem, lah!”, “See you later, lah!”. I could almost hear Tina’s dialogue in my head.
Hyejung, too, speaks heavily Korean-accented, broken English, and Harmony Becker writes the dialogue in a wonderfully conversational style. It might annoy some readers, perhaps even infuriate the self-proclaimed “grammar police”, but will leave a far more memorable impression on anyone looking for authenticity. Nao’s struggles with Japanese will be especially relatable to anyone who grew up without learning their mother tongue or has ever felt like an outsider in their own native country because they were raised somewhere else.
The artwork in Himawari House is fantastic, and despite its black-and-white panels, I never once found myself wishing for colour. That’s how vividly and playfully Harmony Becker brings her characters to life as they slowly familiarize themselves with Tokyo, its language, and its people. Each chapter also opens with a full-page illustration of one or more of the protagonists, serving as both a welcome visual breather and a charming snapshot of their everyday lives. For instance, the page above from my copy of Himawari House shows the girls getting ready for a fun day out in Tokyo’s famous Harajuku district.
From Japanese lessons and part-time job struggles to the little misunderstandings caused by language barriers and cultural differences, Himawari House often feels like a travel diary shared between its three protagonists. That does mean we never get an especially deep dive into any one character’s life, particularly Nao’s, since the opening chapters initially make it seem as though she’ll be the primary focus, but it wasn’t a problem for me.
Despite being entirely fictional, Himawari House feels deeply personal, touching, and quietly comforting. I am glad I picked up a physical copy, because I can easily see myself revisiting this graphic novel again.
Rating for Himawari House: 5 stars on 5.
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