夏子の酒

NATSUKO NO SAKE

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
12
RELEASE
April 1, 1991
CHAPTERS
131

DESCRIPTION

Passion and a dream of sake.

Natsuko, the daughter of a sake brewery, fights for her dream of brewing the best sake in Japan using the legendary rice Tatsunishiki.

(Source: Kodansha, translated)

CAST

Natsuko Saeki
Wataru Kusakabe
Shinsuke Yamada
Yasuo Saeki
Hiroo Saeki
Teru Miyakawa
Makoto Gouda
Eiji Utsumi
Kazuko Saeki
Shingo Kuroiwa
Ueda Hisashi
Saeko Hashimoto
Takao Saeki

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Boreduser
100/100
A great manga all around
Natsuko's Sake

Wa Jou Ryou Shu. Harmony makes good sake.

The art of distilling sake was something that was slowly dying in japan in the late 80s to early 90s. Many distilleries were closing down due to how unsustainable it was to stay open with how little profit was actually made. Post World War 2, there were an estimated 7000 distilleries in Japan. In 1990 that number dropped to around 2000. Sake workers are growing older on average. The younger generation generally doesn't see a reason to go make sake since it isn't worth the effort for how little money is actually made. Making little profit was an issue, but so was modernization. Rice farming for some time in the showa era became completely unreasonable. As the harvest season would come around, the price of rice would drop dramatically, and farmers would make no money for themselves to eat, leading to farmers starving first. After a few decades of new technology and chemical fertilizers and pesticides, farming became a reasonable practice again, but only with the sustained use of those harmful chemicals and plentiful funding from the government. The love of crops was lost. Rice, radish, cabbage, potatoes, and many other vegetables are now merely products. To be used for profit. Starvation is now much rarer in Japan, so these food items aren't something that would be treated as precious anymore. With this necessary context, it's probably much clearer now why sake distilleries were closing down so rapidly. It makes no money, and the heart was being lost.

Natsuko Saeki is a young woman in 90s Japan. That is to say, she isn't anyone special. Her father is the owner of Saeki Distillery, but Natsuko, despite loving sake at a young age, doesn't live in the small village of Nigata where the distillery is. Instead, she's in Tokyo working as a copywriter. Natsuko is obviously the main character of this manga. Her name is the title of the manga. Unlike most main characters in manga, Natsuko doesn't exactly know what she wants to do in life. She loves sake but hates the small town her family resides in. She figured going to Tokyo and making advertisements for sake would be the happy medium she wants. Reality isn't so kind. After some time in Tokyo, she gets a call from home. Her brother, the current chief of the Saeki Distillery, has fallen ill. She goes back home to see him.

Yasuo Saeki is the most integral character to this story. His fingerprints are everywhere, even in ways you wouldn't expect. His current goal in his limited life is to find a certain breed of rice for sake brewing, Tatsunishiki. It's said to be a breed that won't survive modern farming techniques. That is, using pesticides, weed killers, and chemical fertilizers. For the purposes of most distilleries, this breed of rice is useless. It takes a lot of work to do organic farming, and as a result, Tatsunishiki can't be easily mass produced like other sake rice breeds such as gohyakumangoku. Yasuo is obsessed with finding this rice breed, believing it can make the best sake in Japan. He makes it his life's work to both find this breed of rice and make a batch of sake with it. Yasuo does find some tatsunishiki, 1350 grains. Enough to plant in a small field. Before he could, his sickness caught up to him. He dies suddenly and unexpectedly one day after finally finding tatsunishiki. Yasuo was beloved by everybody in the Saeki Distillery. He was brilliant at making sake and managing the place. He truly believed in comradery when making sake. Wa Jou Ryou Shu. Both in and outside of his family distillery. He established connections to other distilleries as well. His hope was to make a sake that would be beloved by Natsuko. One that would bring her love for sake back to her. That would be Yasuo's sake.

In an effort to learn more about modern sake making, she tours a city distillery. It's vastly different from what we're shown in the opening chapters. Instead of a small group of people working hard to make sake, it's all machines. Everything is regulated automatically, and the sake made as a result tastes worse to Natsuko. Wa Jou Ryou Shu. In the city, there are no people making sake, and Natsuko hates that. Alongside being forced to lie in her advertisements about sake. So she goes back home to Nigata. This is where the story really begins and where I'm going to stop recapping the story. The first volume of this manga sets up most of the important plot points that happen. It seems to me that the story of Natsuko's Sake was prepared in advance. Natsuko is a young lady who, like you or me, doesn't really know what she wants in life yet. She's stumbling in the dark, making mistakes, and imposing on others accidentally. Her first goal in the manga is to grow tatsunishiki. She becomes obsessed with it. It's the only thing she can think of for the longest time. She goes back to Nigata in the middle of winter when the distillery is making sake.
Broadly speaking, you can break up sake making into two 6 month periods. Spring through summer and some of autumn is when rice is planted and harvested for making sake, and the rest of autumn and winter is when rice is brewed into sake. Distillery workers, when making sake, go to live in the distillery since it is such a constant process, all winter long. Being forced to leave behind their families for 6 months straight, not even able to go back during the new year.
While back home, Natsuko meets a lot of new people. Yoshida a middle aged rice farmer, Miyakawa an old man who used to be known as the best rice farmer in Nigata, and Saeko a runaway to Tokyo like Natsuko who is coming back to Nigata to work in Saeki Distillery.
I'm not going to talk about Yoshida and Miyakawa beyond saying that they exist since that's enough for my purposes. Saeko, however, is different.

Saeko Hashimoto is a direct parallel to Natsuko. She ran away from Nigata to Tokyo for work and eventually returned because Tokyo was too much for her. At the beginning of the story, she's extremely abrasive towards Natsuko. She's harsh to everyone, really, but Natsuko, in particular she has a bone to pick with since, unlike herself, Natsuko has a current goal she's working towards. Saeko is the daughter of a reluctant farmer. I say reluctant because he was forced to inherit the rice fields and work on them to live. Neither her father nor Saeko want to be farmers. So when she sees Natsuko beg her dad to borrow a small rice field, Saeko gets angry at her. What's so fun about farming? Getting dirty and sweating all day, to the point you're nearly unable to move at the end? To Saeko, farming is a means to an end. It is simply a way to live and survive. Natsuko is the stark opposite. She believes that planting and harvesting her brother's last wish is something she is destined to do. She has to work hard, by herself, with no modern technology. Her tenacity inspires Saeko, who begs to get her job back at Saeki Distillery after abruptly quitting. Natsuko's Sake is about Natsuko primarily, but as the saying goes, harmony makes good sake, so she, unknowingly through her hard work and determination, will be touching the hearts of so many people along the way to growing and eventually brewing tatsunishiki. Saeko is just one of many. Natsuko by herself cannot brew sake. Not only is it a difficult process that takes years to master, but it actively requires multiple people to accomplish traditionally. A master of the craft is necessary to overlook the process of brewing sake and make sure it goes well. These masters are called "toji" or "touji," depending on your preference.

Yamada Nobusuke is the touji of Saeki Distillery. Nearly 70 years old, he's been brewing sake for around 50 years. He's been the touji of Saeki Distillery for around 30 years. Yamada is very proud of his work as a touji and loves the process. He personally takes care of so much of the work and knows how to work with the younger distillery workers. Yamada has also inherited Yasuo's will. Yamada wants to take the tatsunishiki and make a sake out of it. Yamada is old, as stated before, and making sake is not an easy process. Towards the end, Natsuko notices that Yamada loses weight every time he works at the distillery. If he keeps up this strenuous work for much longer, he'll eventually collapse. Yamada is determined to brew tatsunishiki. He trusts Natsuko to grow the rice, and she trusts him to make a good sake out of it. Natsuko has known Yamada all of her life. Natsuko is 22 years old at the beginning of the story, and again, Yamada has been working at Saeki Distillery for 30 years. He's practically a grandfather to her. Yamada is worried about the future of Saeki Distillery after Yasuo's death. Natsuko both isn't capable and doesn't want to do it yet, and Yasuo's son is too young. This is what i meant by sake distilleries closing down because the heart is being lost. Touji Yamada is a rarity, and even the touji system for distilleries was slowly going out of practice. If Yamada's health is put into question, then not only will tatsunishiki made sake not be created, but Saeki Distillery will be forced to close down. Yamada wants to make the tatsunishiki sake no matter what. Even if his health is poor, he'll risk his very life and pride as a touji to make that sake. A sake made with every skill he knows and his entire being. That is Yamada's sake.

Natsuko's Sake is about many things. I've talked briefly about sake making and farming. I've talked about some characters i think are important. Yet this 12 volume manga packs so much detail and interesting story into it that even this massive review barely even scratches the surface. If my great detail isn't an indicator, then let me say it outright. This is one of my favorite manga of all time. The story is something i relate to personally, i love the use of quiet moments to really let the weight of decisions and actions linger. The characters are incredibly written. The research and in-depth explanation put into every step of sake making. This is a story about a young woman figuring out what she wants to do with her life. For most of the story, Natsuko isn't making sake. She's chasing after her brother. It takes a long time for her to figure out what she wants. A sake made with tatsunishiki that can renew both organic farming and sake making as an art. A sake that is the blood of her brother, from the golden ears of tatsunishiki to the clear alcohol made with it. A sake that can bring people together again. Wa Jou Ryou Shu. Harmonious and filled with passion. That is Natsuko's Sake.
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