Noko, in this regard, is a typical Japanese woman in her early 20s, save one factor: she is overweight.

This is another astonishingly honest work from Moyoco Anno, who was the guest of honour at the New York ComicCon, and whose works have garnered worldwide acclaim.Noko is introduced as a compulsive over-eater with a thankless office job and an unappreciative boyfriend of nine years named Saito. She insults her to her face, sets up her up to look bad before their bosses, and even goes so far as to frame Noko for embezzlement. We do not enjoy or approve of Noko’s closing determination, but we can understand her resignation because we’re neither stupid nor blind to the way of the world.

For the most part, we follow an overweight girl, Noko Hanazawa, who is the constant target of workplace bullying and social ostracization. While those are valid views, I want to emphasize that Noko's extreme experiences do exist in reality and must not be brushed away as unrealistic and unrelatable just because every woman does not go through them.Anno allows the reader to dwell in Noko’s thoughts, giving us insight enough into the protagonist’s sense of the world and herself. When I draw a woman or a chair or a political ideology, I can reasonably only investigate a fractional portion of her/its multitude of properties. The thing was: Yahweh was considered too vast and magnificent to be represented by something as inarticulate as an image. I've complained before about female on female hate before, and while this story includes a lot of the same relationships elements as say Absolute Boyfriend Volume 2, the exaction could not be more different. I’m not certain of the intricacies of Japanese culture and how measured their reaction to an obese woman would be, but while the American reaction (probably) wouldn’t be outright bullying outside the cesspit interactions of YouTube and online forums, her measure as a woman would certainly be underlined and calcified by her weight.