I have a lot of respect for artists that keep away from the social media circus. While that makes my job of tracking down some sort of history of bibliography much harder, I find it compelling when a dōjinka remains a bit of an enigma. This is certainly the case with the author of the rather indie publication I'll be presenting today...
I mean, dead Twitter, dead personal website, a single post on Pixiv... you don't get much more obscure than that nowadays. Funny enough, the only Pixiv post, dating 2018, announces that Nobukatsu Sawafuji (that is the name of the one-man circle) would move all of their publication work to Twitter... a Twitter that no longer exists (and another previous account, also bust). So yeah, we're running on fumes here.
And it's a shame because, if you're a fan of thata gekiga, super avant-garde style you'd find on the pages of Garo or similar, 或る日の夢 would be right in your ballpark. In this B&W, 2017 work Sawafuji, who in his Pixiv bio prides himself on being "one of the few still working with traditional media", definitely leans into that dirty, messy, angular style that has its most well known examples in people like Kazuo Umezu or Tadao Tsuge. An acquired taste for sure, but I sort of dig it to be honest -high contrast, very dynamic linework.
The story itself is one of the two genres the author dabbles in, school drama tinged with mystery and a tad of horror (the other being politics, by the way). On a rainy day, a schoolgirl gets on a bus and has a dream... of being a boy? or is the boy dreaming of being a girl? Yeah, very Twilight Zone-y stuff, nothing crazy really but it's the style you're paying the ticket for, not the story.
I'd love to say I'd like to see more but, since I wasn't even able to conjure up a list of works for Nobukatsu Sawafuji, I'm afraid this is where my collecting will stop. Very interesting stuff though if you're into the more indie side of things.
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