Today's book recommendation. For our third installment, we're featuring "Yoshiharu Tsuge's Hot Springs" by manga artist Yoshiharu Tsuge.
I came across this book because of someone I deeply admire.YouTuber Teru-san TV shows Teru-san's overnight stay in his car in Okutama.It was from where I was reading it.
It's the size of a paperback and looks like a novel from the cover, but when you open it, about half of it is like a photo collection taken in the late 1960s and 70s in a hot spring town in a remote corner of the Japanese archipelago that tourists probably never visit. All the photos are in black and white and were taken around the 1960s, but they are strangely reminiscent of scenes that would probably still look the same in today's Reiwa era.
The photos show locals enjoying the hot springs, and from them, you can sense the feeling of a time before the internet and smartphones existed, a time when people enjoyed doing nothing.
These days, when you ride the train, most people just stare at their smartphones the whole way to their stop, without any particular reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it does make me think.
Why not take a look at this little book on your journey tomorrow?
