Red Colored Elegy

Seiichi Hayashi’s Red Colored Elegy is a landmark of Japanese alternative manga from the late 1960s, now available in English from Drawn & Quarterly. This single-volume work, translated by Taro Nettleton, follows a young couple’s drifting relationship against a backdrop of political and social unrest, rendered in Hayashi’s strikingly spare, experimental linework. A key influence on the gekiga movement, it remains a quietly powerful study of love and alienation.