LICAF 2026: ‘Here And Now’ Launches At The Lakes — A Wales/Japan Comic Sharing Stories Of Dementia

by Olly MacNamee

Re-Live, a Welsh arts-in-health charity, has announced a new one-shot comic. Her and Now, dealing with real-life stories of people living with dementia and their families in Wales and Japan, will be published in three separate editions: English, Welsh, and Japanese. It launched at the weekend’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), where Comicon.com’s Olly MacNamee bumped into Karin Diamond, Artistic Director of Re-Live.

While this is Re-Live’s third comic, it’s the charity’s first international collaboration, made with Tenjin-kai, a dementia care organisation in Ofunato, northern Japan, as part of the Wales–Japan 2025 Culture Programme.

“The comic is a flip-book with two covers. One side reads left to right, in the Western way; turn it over and the other side reads right to left, as manga does. Two covers, two countries, two reading directions. Read side by side, the four stories invite readers in Wales and Japan to learn from each other’s experience of dementia, and from each other’s approach to care.

On the Japanese-facing cover is the final painting by Ebisu Yoshikazu — one of the originators of Japan’s heta-uma (“bad but good”) movement, a contributor to the legendary manga anthology Garo since the 1970s, and for years a much-loved face on Japanese primetime television. Now in his eighties and living with dementia, Ebisu-sensei licensed the painting, titled Relieved (ほっとした), for the comic. Welsh illustrator Jonathan Edwards has painted two of the comic’s real storytellers, Mr and Mrs Sato, standing before it in a gallery. For Ebisu, an artist who has spent his life telling stories in pictures, it is a quietly powerful statement: creative expression does not end with a dementia diagnosis.”

Discussing the comic, Diamond stated:

“Within these pages are stories shared by people living with dementia, and by family members, in both Wales and Japan. We are deeply thankful for the courage and openness it has taken each storyteller to share their experiences with us. We have seen how creativity can help people reconnect with parts of themselves and with one another.”

“What I really love about Tenjin-kai’s philosophy of care is the belief that people living with dementia still have a part to play in their own lives and in the lives of those around them — cooking, cleaning, gardening, caring for each other, and contributing to the everyday life of the community,” says Diamond. “As Dr Uchide taught me, connections with people living with dementia are found in the ordinary, seemingly insignificant moments of daily life. There is so much we can learn from that in Wales.”

Dr Yukimi Uchide, Chair of the Tenjin-kai Social Welfare Foundation in Japan, added:

“We realised that the humour, humanity, and surprising moments we encounter every day in our lives alongside people with dementia might be expressed and shared through comics.”

As for the content of this new one-shot, there are four stories — two from Wales, two from Japan — which are told by the people who lived them:

Patrick, a former rugby player living with vascular dementia, on his diagnosis and on what keeps him going – family, friends, a Sunday roast and a turn on the dance floor. Drawn by Matt Beese.
Carri, on caring for her mother Mavis — the isolation and loneliness that family carers rarely speak about, and the love running underneath it all. Drawn by Archie McKenzie.
Ritsuko Sato, from Ofunato, on life alongside her husband as his dementia progressed, and one extraordinary day when his carers took him back to his home and his old school. Drawn by Tokyo mangaka Kawakatsu Tokushige.
Dr Yukimi Uchide, one of Japan’s leading dementia specialists, on what her own mother Fumiko-san was able to teach her about dementia — insights that a lifetime of professional expertise had not given her. Drawn by Yuki Monou.

More than 57 million people worldwide are living with dementia, according to the World Health Organization, with nearly 10 million new cases every year. Behind each of them are family members and carers whose experiences are rarely told.

“I hope that, by reading this comic, more people will deepen their understanding of those living with dementia and grow kinder not only towards them, but towards all people,” says Dr Uchide. “If that happens, perhaps our communities can become gentler, brighter, and more welcoming places for everyone.”