Details

Synopsis

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Tonio is a five-year-old who still speaks baby talk, yet his thoughts are much deeper and his actions much wilder than your ordinary five-year-old. Together with his two best friends, who talk like gangsters, and sometimes with the scientist Dr. Inoue, he explores through — and beyond — geography, time, dimensions, and much more. Though only kindergarteners who sometimes still play with blocks, these boys have the language, activities, and curiosity in life (as well as in women!) of high-schoolers or older. As they're full of ideas and questions, their experiments and experiences know no bounds. While each tale is short, most of the themes tend toward the deep and penetrating. That notwithstanding, in these stories Sota does not try to come to any conclusions. He lets his thoughts wander without limit through the minds of these computer graphics generated five-year-olds and, in sharing his own wild philosophical world, takes readers on amusing, free-thinking journeys.

Tonio is a new kind of manga, with expressive computer graphics art, play, and philosophy that leaves readers wondering, musing, and laughing long after they've finished reading. This book also shows us the fun of imagining freely with no rules, as we all did when we were five years old.

Category Level

Manga/Graphic Novel
Humor

Editorial Review

Tonio is a book filled with playful stories of both depth and breadth, created on unique conceptions. In this book, Sota Sugawara, with no holds barred, expresses his freewheeling wild ideas via computer graphics characters of his own creation. The book can be enjoyed as an example of the capabilities of computer graphics — or simply for some good laughs.

Table of contents

• Welcome to La La land
  Vol. 1. Ways to Travel the World
  Vol. 2. What's Out There?
  Vol. 3. Ms. Eye
  Vol. 4. My Other Half
  Vol. 5. Invisibility Brings Freedom
  Vol. 6. For My Beloved Hanako
  Vol. 7. 70 Years Later
  Vol. 8. The Pick-Up Game
  Vol. 9. Sunero I
  Vol. 10. Sunero II
  Vol. 11. Job
  
• Welcome to Wonderland
  Vol. 12. Brain
  Vol. 13. Dreams I
  Vol. 14. Dreams II
  Vol. 15. Baby Shit
  Vol. 16. True Happiness
  Vol. 17. Euphoria at Last
  Vol. 18. Where Do We Go After We Die?
  Vol. 19. Time Traveling I
  Vol. 20. Time Traveling II
  Vol. 21. The Fifth Dimension
  Vol. 22. The Ultimate Question
  Vol. 23. Plastic Models

About the Author

Sota Sugahara was born on August 16, 1978 in Tokyo, Japan. He began exploring his creativity during his junior high school years, making independent films, and in 1997 started to produce artwork using computer graphics (CG). His name became well known when his CG comic appeared serially in the weekly magazine SPA, published by Fusosha. The readers loved the stories, with their unique outlook on the world.
His varied and unique artwork have made Sota popular among not only teenagers but adults as well.
Sota also creates fliers and album covers for the rock band B-DASH, in which his brother is a member.