Nasu

茄子

by Iou Kuroda

Nasu is a collection of stories, focusing on a returning series of characters, such as Takama, a farmer, and a young girl named Aya Takashi, who begins the series abandoned by her father and residing in Tokyo with her two younger siblings, and as the manga progresses to its second volume, leaves the city to reside in the countryside with her relatives, near Takama's farm. Apart from the chapters concerning Takama and Aya, other stories are also featured, such as one telling the chronicles of samurai in the Edo period hunting forbidden eggplant (nasu), another set atop a futuristic Mount Fuji, another tale concerning a truck driver, and also Summer in Andalusia, the story concerning the professional Spanish bicyclist Pepe Benengeli, from which the film was adapted.