Kazuo Ishiguro praises the The Remains of the Day manga drawn by est em

Kazuo Ishiguro has read the first chapter of the manga adaptation of The Remains of the Day and his opinion could not be more favorable. In an email sent to artist est em through publisher Hayakawa Shobo, the Nobel laureate highlights the understated humor and the expressiveness of the protagonist, the butler Stevens. "Very promising," he writes about a work published in Japan under the Hayakawa Comics imprint.

The news comes in an interview that Asahi Shimbun's Kōkō Shokō published to mark the manga's second volume and the twentieth anniversary of est em's career. The artist, known for titles such as Ippo and the BL Shō ga Hanetara Aimashō, explains that the project was born from a direct question from her editor: which Ishiguro novel would she like to turn into a manga? Her answer was immediate: The Remains of the Day, a story she already knew from James Ivory's 1993 film and which, upon reading it, left her with a different impression from the movie.

The main challenge, she admits, was confronting Stevens's narrative voice. The novel is written in the first person and relies on what critics call an unreliable narrator: a man who talks endlessly, who builds seemingly coherent explanations, but whose position never quite becomes clear. "The interest of the original lies in that oscillation of information," says est em. Translating that torrent of monologue into panels has been, she admits, an exhausting task: cutting down the text without losing the tone or flavor of the original, while also thinking about those who will come to the story for the first time through the comic.

"His humor is understated but effective, and the portrait of Stevens is already moving. The way he walks through the empty mansion is very expressive, and the use of silent panels focused on his almost expressionless face while others joke is a very skillful direction."

Ishiguro's email came after the publisher translated the first chapter into English and sent it to the writer. est em confesses she let out a "hyaaa" when she read it. She also recalls a curious detail: the Japanese translation she received of the message sounded, she says, like the style of Hayakawa Shobo's foreign literature, the publisher that releases Ishiguro in Japan and that now drives its manga line.

A trip along Stevens's route

Before drawing, est em traveled alone to England and spent four or five days following the itinerary the butler takes in the novel. This is nothing new for her: she usually visits the places she is going to draw. But the British light surprised her. Accustomed to Spain and Italy, where shadows are hard and outlines are crisp, she found in England a diffuse light, veiled by clouds, which she connects to the ambiguity of the work itself. She was struck by the green of the hills when the sun appeared after the rain. "In manga I can't express color, but I would like to convey that atmosphere," she explains.

Staircase of an English country house photographed by est em and the panel she drew for The Remains of the Day.book.asahi.com

The main setting, Darlington Hall, is inspired by Audley End, an English country house that the artist photographed thoroughly. For the interiors she combined elements from different buildings. All the drawing, including the backgrounds, is done by her: she wanted a line with texture, far from the polished digital stroke, so she works with a G-Pen nib. She also imposed a rule on herself that she now regrets: not using screentones in the flashback scenes to differentiate them from the present. "I draw and draw, and it never ends," she says with a laugh.

A butler who hides behind his profession

est em describes Stevens as a strange man, trapped in a kind of "jelly" of British aristocratic society. He is not a nobleman, but he prides himself on sustaining the aristocratic class as a butler. He talks at length about what makes a good butler, but when it comes to explaining why he seeks pride in his profession, everything becomes blurry. "He's slippery, you can't grab hold of him, and although he talks a great deal, he barely reveals himself," she sums up.

The first volume focuses on his relationship with his father, who was under-butler at Darlington Hall. For the artist, the generational contrast is key: the father belongs to an era when the butler's worth was unquestionable, while Stevens lives in the 1920s and beyond, when the class system is already faltering. That stubbornness to remain a butler in a changing world is what interests her most about the character. She feels no sympathy for his excuses, but she finds him fascinating.

Manga of The Remains of the Day, based on the original by Kazuo Ishiguro with art by est em (Hayakawa Comics).book.asahi.com

The second volume will include the dinner that Stevens will never forget and the reunion with Miss Kenton. est em says the dinner is a scene with many guests, all older men, and that telling them apart is proving to be a challenge. "It might be a strange manga, because the average age of the characters on screen is very high," she jokes. Still, she says drawing that scene is fun.

Page from chapter 7, included in the second volume of The Remains of the Day (Hayakawa Comics).book.asahi.com

Twenty years of career

The interview coincides with the twentieth anniversary of est em's debut. She started in 2006 with Shō ga Hanetara Aimashō, a BL about a flamenco dancer and a Hollywood star. At the time she was a graduate student at Kyoto Seika University and had no plans to work in commercial manga: she was interested in projects that connected comics with society and the culture of the French bande dessinée. An editor called her and she debuted without knowing anything about commercial BL.

For years she drew what she herself wanted to read. The change came with Ippo, the story of a young shoemaker published by Shueisha in 2012. The magazine it appeared in shut down and the series moved to a seinen publication. That was when she started thinking about the adult reader: what a story needs to be satisfying for them. That learning process, she says, is what has changed the most in these two decades.

About the future, she prefers not to make plans. She has ideas, but nothing defined. Her priority now is finishing the adaptation of The Remains of the Day. "First, complete the manga," she says.