Gold Pollen and Other Stories

Seiichi Hayashi (b. 1945) was a leading figure in Tokyo's hotbed of avant-garde artistic production in the 1960s and '70s. He is best known for his lyrical and experimental manga for Garo, the famous alternative comics magazine. The present volume collects a handful of Hayashi’s most important manga from this period, including “Red Dragonfly” (1968), “Yamauba’s Lullaby (1968), and “Gold Pollen” (1971). Published here in their original full color, these stories mix traditional Japanese aesthetics with Pop Art sensibilities, and range in topic from the legacies of Japanese rightwing nationalism and World War II, to the shadow of America over 60s Japanese youth culture.