Tropic of the Sea

Satoshi Kon

<b><i>Tropic of the Sea</i> is a rare look at revered anime <i>auteur </i>Satoshi Kon’s first feature-length manga. This edition includes a dozen black-and-white art plates from its original serialization, along with an essay written by Kon in 1999 detailing his transition from the manga industry to the animation business.</b><br><br>Yosuke’s family has a strange tradition—once every sixty years they receive an egg from a mermaid. When the egg matures, his family dutifully returns it to the sea, where the whole process is then repeated. In exchange for this favor, the mer-people bless his coastal town with bountiful catches of fish and calm seas.<br><br>But as commercial development encroaches on the sleepy seaside village and Yosuke’s father is lured away from tradition towards modern prosperity and turns the egg into a tourist trap, what will happen to the promise their family made to the mermaids generations ago?