Reader's Diary #1797- Cheah Sinann: The Bicycle

Cheah Sinann's The Bicycle tells of an unlikely friendship between a Japanese soldier named Toshiro Iwakura and a street kid named Ah Cheng during the Japanese occupation of Singapore during the second World War.

Not much educated on this topic, the setting was quite interesting to me. I especially enjoyed hearing about the use of bicycles during the war.

However the real point of the story is, of course, a hopeful message about finding decency in unexpected times and people. This is well done, though a bit quick. The dialogue comes across as stilted and a tad too formal, but I was able to quickly adjust.

The art looks to be assisted by computer painting for shading, but is nonetheless a pretty unique style with simple, thickly inked lines.