Everybody Dies

August 29, 2011
A parody in the vein of the classic Japanese children’s book Everyone Poops, this slender volume addresses matters mortal as opposed to those fecal, and the result is a curious work that straddles the line between the flat-out morbid and the darkly humorous. International YouTube personality Tanaka approaches the material from the perspective of a book intended for reading to frightened adults by their children in an attempt to help them understand the various ways in which we can meet our fate. The author achieves this via page after page of images depicting many possible demise scenarios with images rendered in a childlike style evoking art generated by and for elementary schoolers as posters. The faux “kiddie” aesthetic merrily portrays surfing tragedy, being devoured by wild animals, war, armed robbery, and overdose as just some of the lethal possibilities, content that is simultaneously amusing and quite grim.