Asano is formed with the kanji combination 浅野, where 浅 alone can mean shallow or shameful, and 野, plains, rustic or civil life. Inio is formed out by hiragana, so I don't really know if this is his real name (I searched for it and came up with nothing), but this is as far as my japanese knowledge go (with the internet's help).

Interesting enough, 浅 in combination with からぬ assumes a new meaning, of deep (of emotions or connections). Personally, I think his name sums up playfully not only Nijigahara, but all of his work.

Well, most important: if you walk in this manga expecting to have a good time, or thinking this is Solanin (or even Oyasumi Punpun) you are bound to have a bad time. This is neither. A good comparison I could make, since this is always a good comparison to confusing things most people doesn't seem to get, is 2001. For me, I actually found Nijigahara, while rather confusing, more interesting, if not deep, than 2001 (don't get me wrong, it is one of my favorites, I just was not impressed by the so "deep philosophy" people always talk about when mentioning the movie).

Even if it is confusing at first, it is certainly not unpenetrable. Reading for the first time after hearing about how confusing and deep way down Mariana's Trench it was, I still managed to get the trivial enjoyment intrinsic to all Asano's work, that enjoyment of reading a slice of life, and get a good chunk of understanding about what was going on, so I can just think that people over exaggerate on it, or the ones who didn't managed to get a thing from it are just lazy. After all, it is a work that relies on symbolism and discreet nuances; it is not intended for the complete understand in just one read. It's 300 pages long, there are few dialogues if compared to other Asano's works, it's not War and Peace. So I think it is a perfectly reasonable work to udnerstand.

At the core of this book, I believe there is the message I presume Asano tries to pass out on all his works (and, maybe, chants to himself every morning before getting out of bed): you got to keep on living, no matter what.

Ah, and I agree that Asano will never be able to write something like that again: this is an amateur work. Not that it is bad, just that it was a tricky shot. It was probably the one most resembling of what he conceived in mind. I hope I made some sense.