Tag Archives: drama

   Banana Fish by Yoshida Akimi

I have to apologize for being gone for so long.

The biggest hold up has been that I managed to spill coffee on my computer and, though it briefly seemed like my computer would pull through, it ended up failing more and more. Eventually, I simply had to finally break down and replace it. In the meantime I was borrowing my wife’s computer, which is fine for a lot of things, but I’m not sure how happy she’d be to discover all of the various screenshots of yuri and yaoi in her pictures folder, you know?

On top of that, I’ve been reading a lot of things lately that have multiple volumes and it’s sometimes difficult for me to know how useful it is for me to review only the first few. 

And then…. 

I fell into Banana Fish.

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If I had found Banana Fish when I was 15 years old I would have thought that I’d died and gone to heaven.  

As a friend of mine said, this story is made of my id. It has everything my trashy, perverted younger self secretly wanted… well, to be, but at the time I would have said in the man I wanted to marry. Our hero, amazingly named Ash Lynx is a  literal genius with an IQ of over 200, a martial arts master, a sharp shooter with insane accuracy, has a tragic backstory that includes male prostitution, is physically based on River Phoenix, and… is gay AF (at least for Eiji Okumura.) 

The tag line alone would have sold it to me–”Nature made him beautiful, nurture made him a killer!”

I will say in advance of talking too much more about it, this manga series is somewhat difficult to find. Even though Banana Fish was first published in the 1980s (specifically from 1985-1994 in Bessatsu Shoujo Comic), it is still in print. At least, my Barnes & Noble had it on the shelves when I was there a few weeks ago. The link above points you to the Viz Media page for it, which only gives you three chapters for free before they put the screws on to get you to subscribe. There are bits and pieces of it uploaded on Internet Archives, but I couldn’t find anything complete out there for free. So, if you are on a budget, you might want to stop reading now, lest you, like me, find it compelling enough to consider blowing your budget over.

If you already subscribe to Netflix, there is, at least, reissue of an old anime series available for you to watch. That’s how I ended up first consuming it. 

So, the story. The whole thing is so deeply improbable in the most fun way. The larger plot involves a mind-control drug invented by the Chinese mafia (maybe) with ties to the US government. Ash’s connection is through an older brother who served either in Iraq (the updated version) or Vietnam (the original) who was tested on against his will and has since become deeply disabled. And, also the evil kingpin, Dino Golzine, who picked Ash up off the street and Epstein filed him, as it were, while also grooming him to one day take over as head of the Italian mafia. This plot is truly ‘gonzo,’ and just science fictional enough that I stayed hooked despite some real doozies of “random” coincidences. 

The romance end of the story starts when we begin to follow our other main, Eiji Okumura, yaoi’s first perfect cinnamon bun of a boy, into the dark underbelly of America’s gang scene in the 1980s. Eiji is an assistant to a photojournalist who has come from Japan to document the crime and lawlessness that is America. (I mean… fair.) However, while it is true that guns are everywhere in the US and the gangs of 80-90s were BAD, there were times when even I–who had very purposefully removed my suspenders of disbelief and set them aside–had moments of, “Uh… I’m pretty sure you can’t actually get away with THAT much gun violence??!!?” 

But, luckily, the cops are bumbling idiots. (Again, fair.)

In the first chapters, Eiji manages to impress Ash with a daring pole-vaulting escape, and thus an OTP is born.

The story of Banana Fish is only very lightly a Boys’ Love. In the anime, the only kiss we get is when Ash, who is in prison, wants to pass a secret note to Eiji. What I’ve seen from the manga, there is a little more titillation here and there with implied sexual situations/sexual assault. But, don’t read or watch this one for the sexy bits. The romance is pretty strong, though I will warn that Banana Fish goes the way of Cowboy Bebop. So, it’s also probably best if you don’t attach too much to either of the two mains–or many of the side-characters, honestly. I got burned by caring a bit too much for “Shorter,” Ash’s bestie. 

It’s far too complicated and messy to give you all the various turns and twists, but, for me, it was an absolute delight to watch Ash Lynx be everyone’s “hellcat”/problem and Eiji be the comfort of home for Ash to fight his way back to. 

The manga’s art is very much a product of its time, but, for me, there is an elegance in Yoshida-sensei’s line art that makes me accept that Ash and Eji were seen as “bishonen” back in the day. I’m not quite sure I can explain it, but some of her art is just full of a kind of sensuality that draws the eye in and causes it to pause.

10/10 would again. In fact, I will probably be wasting a lot of money on collecting this manga series over the next however many years.

Flower Shadow’s Memory / Hanakage no Kioku by Mieno Saori

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The afterward of this manga is actually kind of fascinating because it sort of sums up the problems I ended up having with this one…

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The set up in Flower Shadow’s Memory should have been perfect for me.

The cover copy says that this is a story of childhood lovers who later learn that their respective stations will keep them apart. Oooooo, a bunch of stuff Lyda loves! Forbidden love with explicit class conflict! Master/servant vibes! Sign me up!

But, this one didn’t work for me.

There’s a bunch of implied sex and some explicit stuff in the final chapters, but, for me, it somehow failed the dynamic(s) that I love so much. Also, the art in this one was very pretty, but, again, for me, fell into that ‘wispy’ category that I tend to dislike. 

Also, you are welcome to disagree, but I’ve never been fond of the whole tsudere thing when presented as a given without a lot of context. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t like being asked to PRESUME that someone who yells and snarls and rages has a tender heart underneath, without being given some evidence early on in the text to suggest that besides some smoldering glances. 

The problem being that if you don’t get a true sense of the tender before the temper, it kind of just seems like abuse.

Obviously, if you read any of my fanfic, you know that I can personally get a lot of mileage out of a master/servant dynamic paired with a tsudere/blue oni top. And, I think I just answered my own question, which is: given this, why didn’t this work for me?

I want fire against ice. When the dynamic is imbalanced, I want to feel the chafe, the anguish, the shame, or whatever it is that twists up the lower-born when they are forced to submit to the whims of the higher-born. I want to know that the lower-born resists bondage, in a way, because that gives them power to match the power-over, if that makes sense?

A person could make the argument that in this story Laurent is the ice against Arthur’s fire, but this simple reverse screws up what’s hot (for me) about a power imbalance. If the guy with all the power uses it to throw himself against an ice princess who appears to only submit because it is what is required of him, I’m… feeling cringy? A little uncomfortable? Because, like, ice isn’t a very powerful weapon if it’s wielded against fire. If the fire is stronger than the ice, then ice just gets vaporized. Literally.

A small fire against a larger ice? That still does visible damage. The tiniest spark melts ice. That’s why I prefer it if there is fire on the bottom of the social rung, if you will. If there’s ice on top (not just sexually in this case, but also socio-economically,) even if it’s like in this manga, a somewhat an unbreakable barrier, the more the fire pushes against that wall, the closer they are to equal. 

Does that make sense? Maybe I should talk about it in terms of the actual story of Flower Shadow’s Memory. Laurent is the ice; he’s also the low-born one who is essentially owned by Arthur the hot-headed tsundere of the English gentleman class. At some point, in their youth, Arthur supposedly fell in love with Laurent and has remained in love ever since. We get a tiny scene at the start that doesn’t entirely convey this love? It’s a bit metaphorical about admiring Laurent’s skill… as a gardener. But, then, flash to the now and Arthur is storming off after a fight with Laurent and the other servants sighing and saying, “Oh, fighting again, I see?” So, we know that Arthur verbally abuses Laurent all time and Laurent is all, “We must be kind to our lord…” and other beaten wife kinds of excuses. Later, too, in our first “sex scene,” we see Arthur forcing himself against a not-exactly-resisting, but head-turning-away Doing It for England-seeming Laurent. 

Not a great first impression.

So when a handsome top-hat wearing gentleman, Carl, rides up and is all, “I like your flowers,” I immediately start rooting for Laurent to dump Arthur for this guy who seems to appreciate his passions.

Do you ever have friends where you look at their love life choices and think, “I give it a year, tops.” That’s kind of how I felt at the end of this manga, even though Arthur has done the unthinkable and sold or otherwise disposed of his family fortune in order to be a “lowly” peasant like Arthur. 

Yeah, sure. Because class is just money, right? Get rid of the money and the property and I’m SURE Arthur is just a simple man with simple wants underneath!  Surely, he rejects all those old-fangled ideas of the right of kings and royal blood being better than peasant stock!!  Love will get them through!

I guess I don’t trust like that? How long until Arthur is all, “fetch me this!” and “My royal person! You dare!?”? 

I give them a year, tops.

But, if you read this and think, “What? Is Lyda on crack again?? This sounds amazing!” Have at it with my full blessings!  I did read to the end, so I can’t point fingers if you do too! To be fair, I was rooting for Carl, even though I knew that most of the time, manga doesn’t work like that, and there was some hope… alas. Listen, it’s fantasy. If you want to fall into the dream where the broody, vaguely wicked, Bad Boy English gentleman really is just a poor soul at heart who will give up his wealth and privilege just to be with you, his only love, who am I to deny you that! Sounds delightful!  

It just didn’t work for me.

Kimi ni Ienai Koto ga aru / There Are Things I Can’t Tell You by Edako Mofumofu

I’m not sure that Kimi ni Ienai Koto ga aru / There Are Things I Can’t Tell You  was to my taste, but it might be to yours.  And, since I have decided to try to review everything I read, here goes…

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I’m going to start by saying: Yes, I can see that it’s right there in the title. This manga (which is complete in one volume) is, in fact, called There Are Things I Can’t Tell You. 

Yet, what didn’t I like? 

The not talking.

I think I was expecting that the thing that they would struggle to say to one another would be “I love you” and that the story was thus going to be a slow burn, which is the kind of not talking about things that I tend to actually enjoy. But, that’s not the problem here. In the first chapter, one of them says, out loud, that he loves a certain aspect of the other’s personality. They actually confess to each other kind of regularly.

What apparently they suck at saying is that “when I seemed horrified by your confession, I was actually into it, but decided, based on an assumption I made, that you are not as gay as I am and so decided without actually checking-in that I would ghost you and act like I was not at all into you and thus fuck up our entire adult relationship. All because I think it’s what’s best for you.”

It’s not an uncommon trope? It’s just not one of my favorites.

At least this one has some on-screen, uncensored sex, however. Not, in my opinion, enough of it to slog through all the drama and a strange amount of job-related stories, but again, maybe angst is your thing?  

If so, let me introduce you to Kasumi and Kyosuke, childhood besties, that are, according to the back matter, “polar opposites.” I would say that they have a lot in common, but more on that in a bit. Kasumi (the dark-haired one with glasses, naturally) is shy and reserved and Kyosuke (lighter-haired, of course) is the out-going jock type. 

The story largely follows Kyosuke’s point of view, even into his daily adult life as a graphic art designer. As I noted, we follow him into his office and watch him try to win various bids, etc. I’m not sure what this adds to the story? Maybe his long hours focused on work is supposed to explain why he doesn’t notice that Kasumi is always finding reasons to sleepover at his? 

Despite their otherwise very intimate life–they go to movies and dinner together regularly–Kyosuke is convinced that Kasumi is as straight as they come, despite all of the mounting evidence both in the present and past. This misconception, we discover, comes from a moment in high school when Kyosuke accidentally read the shrine wish that Kasumi made for a “future happy family.” 

Kasumi has always had it rougher than Kyosuke, it seems. He was praying for “happy families” because before his parents divorced, his father was a real piece of work. This past trauma has led Kasumi to choose closed-off, unavailable romantic partners, including the one he has at the beginning, a married woman. Kyosuke absolutely hates this relationship. Because he has all these unspoken feelings towards Kasumi, he kind of acts like a dick a lot, which then further pulls the two apart.

Somehow they still end up screwing around. Even this isn’t a solution because now it’s Kasumi’s turn to make stupid assumptions about Kyosuke’s wants and desires. Basically, because of how Kyosuke has had a tendency to “rescue” the shy kid from being a loner in middle and high school, Kasumi figures he’s a pity fuck and breaks things off. 

In my opinion, it takes way too long for these two numbnuts to get it together, but obviously they manage it five chapters (which is faster than some!) so I guess I shouldn’t complain. 

I think more than anything I just wasn’t in the mood for what I got? The art is quite decent and, they do get it on, so *throws up hands* I GUESS it’s fine.

So, do I recommend it? I mean, it does say exactly on the tin what it is. It’s about two guys who just can’t talk about some things and, maybe knowing more about the exact problem will be the trick for you to enjoy it. As I said, I would have been fine with this as a slow burn and I think I just got frustrated that wasn’t what it was. So, I can’t give it all the stars, but maybe you could.

Adabana by NON

Content warning: sexual exploitation, rape, and murder.

Adabana is sort of a murder mystery, only it isn’t.  

The manga starts with a confession. Mizuki, a gloomy girl, takes herself down to the police station to turn herself in for murder. She tells the cops that she’s responsible for the death of her bestie, Masashi Mako. Since the manga opens with a full color spread of Mizuki standing over the body of a young girl who has clearly been stabbed multiple times in the chest, a bloody saw in her hands, the mystery seems pretty “case closed” by page one.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

This is one of those stories where the crime itself gets revisited through various retellings. Each time, more and more is revealed, until the final chapters where we find out everything that happened and the clever twists that allow Mizuki to actually get revenge on equally responsible villains.

Obviously, I’m writing this review having read to the end. If you’re following along as the official English translation tankōbans drop, you should probably stop here as your final volume won’t be out for the next few months.  Just know that I found this whole story absolutely fascinating and highly recommend it. 

Some of you may have come to this review looking for a sense of whether Adabana is safe for you to read. If you are sensitive to or need to avoid stories with rape, sexual exploitation of minors, dubious consent/coresive sex, mental abuse/manipulation, sexual blackmail, or graphic depictions of the above and/or murder and dismemberment Adabana is not for you. It’s a compelling story? You might think you want to read it? But even though I am not normally triggered by any of these things particularly, I found myself with lingering uneasiness after several of the scenes. This story pulls no punches and paints a pretty grim picture.

The rest of you really need to NOT care if you get spoiled before continuing. I’m not planning on spoiling the entire plot, but there are some clever visual things that I’d like to point out that the mangaka did which amused me, I guess? (Which maybe makes me sound like a sociopath.)

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Speaking of sociopaths, however, I found it very fascinating that we are initially allowed to presume that Mizuki is guilty and possibly a stone-cold killer. NON-sensei does some interesting visual things–largely just being clear that Mizuki is a weirdo, a gloomy girl, who absolutely hates her life. Interestingly, that part of her is consistent throughout the various retellings. But, she has the gloomy dead-eye look a lot, which does not make the case that she’s NOT a killer, you know?

Mizuki hates her life enough, actually, to never fully pin the muder–though she could easily do that–on Mako’s shitty ex-boyfriend/stalker. We find out that Mizuki actually wants a prison sentence as part of her own way out of her miserable life and family expectations. 

Interestingly, both of the girl’s situations are motivated by deaths in the family. In Mizuki’s case, she’s being pressured to be a certain kind of perfect girl in order to replace a brother driven to suicide by the exact same pressure. For Mako, it’s the death of her mother and disablement of her father in a car accident that leads her into the lifetime of sexual exploitation which results in her coerced suicide. 

I’ve probably hinted at too much already here, which is why I’ve given such a strong spoiler warning. 

The thing I want to talk about briefly is also a bit of a spoiler, but, interestingly, I think NON-sensei wants us to immediately pick up on the character of this guy, Mako’s shitty ex-boyfriend, because of how he’s drawn.

Which is to be a dead ringer for Light Yagami, the villain-protagonist of Death Note. 

I also thought the lawyer looked like a more realistic version of Shiro, the lawyer-cook from “What Did You Eat Yesterday?” but that one might be more of a stretch. But, who knows? I immediately trusted the lawyer because of that resemblance too. 

Generally, as I note above, I would recommend Adabana, though with some caveats. As I suggested, this one haunted me a bit. I spent a lot of time feeling deeply depressed over the fact that it’s strongly implied that had Mizuki not gone to the lengths that she did, Mako’s death would have been filed under “just another poor girl’s suicide.” This filled me with a deep, dare I say murderous feminist rage, you know? The men in this story are the 100% villains even though it’s not clear that any of the sexplotation that they did constituted a crime under Japanese law. 

I found this one in my library. However, if you, like me, can’t wait to find out how it ends, there are scanlations available through pirate sites which I have linked to in the opening paragraphs. Support the artist and their publisher!! But, also, I don’t judge. 

That being said, this one is a good one and might be worth the cover price. The art is stellar and the mystery is gripping.

Oyasumi Punpun / Goodnight Punpun  by Asano Inio

A friend of mine pointed out that the Internet Archives has a lot of manga available for free reading. I poked through the listings and randomly picked Oyasumi Punpun/ Goodnight Punpun.

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As it happens, Goodnight Punpun is the fourth manga by Asano-sensei that I’ve reviewed. It was published in 2007, directly following Solanin. (Chronologically, the other two are: Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction and Reiraku/Downfall.)  

I started thinking about writing this review after having only read the first volume, because I was already feeling that creeping sense of dread that I get reading Asano-sensei’s work. I remember that I started typing, “Unlike the previous manga by Asano, this one is more like a blueprint for a psychopath than the story of a driftless, broken adult,” but I erased that thinking, “I don’t actually know that PunPun is going to end up as a psycho killer or anything….” 

Whelp, as it says above, spoiler alert: Punpun absolutely DOES.

Yet.

I have no idea why I find Asano-sensei’s work so damn compelling, but I do. I ended up reading twelve of the thirteen volumes of this. I would have read it to the end, but I couldn’t easily find the final volume. I’m sure it’s in the archive, but I was feeling pretty done–the story had reached a really bleak place and I could only imagine a downward trajectory. The Wikipeida page for the manga has a nice summary of the final volume, which I just read, and… oof, yeah, don’t read this if you are at all prone to suicidal ideation or depression, holy crap. 

So, how do I even describe it to you? 

First of all, content warning for suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, rape, graphic violence, and domestic abuse. Not to mention all the murder.

So, yeah. 

When we first meet Onodera Punpun he’s in elementary school and, already, his life is completely f*cked up. His parents argue all the time and he’s so disassociated that he pictures himself (and his family) as two-dimensional bird-like creatures in an otherwise fully-realized, three dimensional world. 

According to Wikipedia, Asano-sensei says that he drew Punpun as a two-dimensional bird sketch so that readers could sympathize and imagine a person neither too ugly, nor too good-looking, but I think it’s very, very clear that that’s only partly true. There’s a point in the later volumes where Punpun’s sense of self becomes so distant from himself and the world that he doesn’t even look like a bird anymore, but a floating triangle.  Here, it’s clearly a symbol of his disassociation from the world because at one point, a compliment from a manga artist/almost-girlfriend about his ability to tell stories, literally breaks open the triangle and the original bird-person comes back out. 

Also, much later, after Punpun commits his first act of violence (that results in a murder,) large parts of him become anchored in the real world–in 3-D–and he sprouts a devil-like head.

Asano apparently also disliked the fact that so many reviewers called this manga surreal, so I won’t. But, there are some really trippy elements. Including a nonsense prayer that Punpun says, which makes God appear.

Literally.

And it’s this guy.

What this reminds me of, actually, is an American novel I read some years ago called Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman. I think that one of the reasons that I twigged early to the idea the Punpun might end up very, very unwell was because the imagery in this and the way Punpun slides through his life reminded me of the protagonist of Challenger Deep, who is a teen who is ultimately diagnosed and lives with schizophrenia. 

So, I feel like I understand why Asano might not want this work dismissed as surrealist. The connotation of the word ‘surreal’ is that it doesn’t make rational sense. If you view Punpun as an undiagnosed schizophrenic, the story–including the visions of a God who wants him to kill people–is very rational. The art is telling a very rational story. It’s not the art style, but the character who is suffering from delusion.

But, back to the story. I think rather than trying to explain all of its twists and turns, I will say that the plot of this book, at its core, is a romantic obsession. One of the first moments that happens is that Punpun falls in love-at-first-sight with a transfer student named Aiko. The obsession moves Punpun’s life all the way through to the ending… and, it is implied, will be reborn in the next grade school crush.

However, the theme is clearly a descent into madness–and not just for Punpun, but for all of the characters around him. Including the interludes that include the cult leader, Pegasus–whose story does, in fact, go as you might expect when you hear the word “cult.”

So can I recommend it? I mean, did you see the list of content warnings? If you’re okay with all that and/or are an Asano completist, I’d say, sure. Still, at your own risk. I couldn’t even finish this one and I can stomach a lot of bleakness.

Is it gorgeous and probably brilliant? Absolutely. My usual complaint about Asano’s work is that he always feels a bit “edge lordy” to me, but that doesn’t mean that his art isn’t insanely good and that his stories don’t have impact.  

So, yes? But also no.

Eden of Witches by Yumeji

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I had a chance to get back to my local library on a day when they happened to have a bunch of first volumes available. So, none of the reviews that are about to follow in the next few days are things I’d necessarily pick up myself. They just happened to be available and I thought, “Sure. Why not?”

Let’s start first with a pretty little volume called Eden of Witches…

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The premise of Eden of Witches is decently captivating, though probably not quite enough for me to continue. 

The idea is that once, in the beginning of time, all the things that existed on Earth lived in perfect harmony with one another. Then, naturally, humanity arrived on the scene, screwed it all up for everyone, and now–in some distant future–the world is mostly a barren wasteland. The only exceptions are hidden enclaves of witches who are still living in lush, verdant lands. They’re able to do this in part because they can communicate to plants through telepathy.

Pili, a young apprentice witch, is, in the way of many such manga, just not good at any of this.

She’s not great at remembering how to grind poultices and seems to have zero ability to talk to plants (this, of course, is subject to change.) Her mentor, Toura, has the patience and, sadly, the story arc of a saint. She lives just long enough to pass on a magical seed that she herself was gifted with which is meant to produce a plant that can guide witches to Eden, a fabled city of witches. 

We later discover the plant looks like this (the wolf, not the poor dying guy):

And is possibly the coolest part of this manga.

Because Pili herself is a little bit more pathetic than I normally like in my anime heroines. I am always up for the kid who thinks they have no powers–or maybe actually don’t!–but who then realizes their real strength lies in [fill in the blank.]  Usually this blank is filled by things like ‘book smarks’ or ’emotional intelligence’ or ‘honor and nobility,’ which then, of course, saves the day in some unexpected ways.

Meanwhile, Pili is kind of exactly as dumb as she says she is. Worse, her dumbness has REALLY SERIOUS consequences. Her first mistake is trusting this guy…

Who turns out to be an absolute maniac (quelle surprise! He looked SO trustworthy!) who literally returns to her enclave with an army to slaughter her already dying auntie/mentor. The next time Pili interacts with people, her idiocy also seems to cause a lot of death and distruction.

I mean. It’s just not a good track record. 

Other than the cool wolf-fern-thing named Oak, I don’t see a lot in Pili yet to admire. She’s kind of sweet nad trusting in a stupid sort of way? But, that would work better if her naivite didn’t actually KILL people.

The art is lovely, particularly the color spread at the beginning of the manga. All of the covers really dazzle and intregue. In the interior, once we’re in the black and white sections, I found things less compelling. All of the men look sort of vaguely related to the Guy Not to Trust, but that could be a feature not a bug, depending on your taste in men.

Would I recommend it? I mean, just because it’s not for me, doesn’t mean that it’s not perfect for you. I can see the hints of something interesting percolating here and perhaps in a few more volumes that thread will emerge and become something gripping. Right now, Pili’s consequences feel too heavy for me. I think I’m just not in the mood for burning witches, ransacked towns, and people starving on government rations that taste like sand. 

It might just not be the year for it, if you know what I mean.

It has been officially licensed in English, so if you like what you see, you can buy it via the usual places. The Scanlations are also out there. I’ve linked to one in the opening.

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Otona no Zukan Kaiteiban / Adults’ Picture Book New Edition by Itoi Kei

The problem with going to the library to return some books is that, inevitably, you come home with more.

This is how I found the first volume of  Otona no Zukan Kaiteiban / Adults’ Picture Book New Edition… and even though this sounds like one, I’m not sure I’m complaining. Adults’ Picture Book, however, is one that I’m not sure didn’t get a little lost in translation.

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I think part of the issue I have with this particular manga is that there are some things about Japanese life that don’t map as well into the overall Western mindset/culture, and, one of the big ones that I’ve hit before, is child guardianship. It seems unusually easy for an unrelated person to just end up with a kid in Japan.

To be fair, I have no idea if manga like Bunny Drop or anime like Buddy Daddies have any basis in reality (to be fair, we can all hope that Bunny Drop–at least its ending–does NOT.) But Adults’ Picture Book New Edition hinges on a similar idea, which is that other people’s abandoned children are apparently up for grabs. 

At least in this version, Kiki, the child in question, has been abandoned along with a note asking Kudou Souichiro to take care of her. We see in her backpack other papers, including something that says “guardianship.” So, I guess in Kudou’s case, he is in some ways her legal guardian.  

But, wait, I hear you asking, why did this guy end up with Kiki? 

This is where things get interesting for my money. 

Kudou was in love with Kiki’s father. It was an unconsummated love–in part because Kudou reads to me as someone who is ace–but, pretty much anyone who listens to Kudou talk about his special friend says, “So, you’re gay?” Kudou always looks confused at this and says that he feels the same about women as he does about men, which is “meh.” 

Yet.

What does Kudou do for a living? He’s a mangaka of adult comics, hentai, illustrated porn, whatever you want to call it. There are some hints that maybe what he’s drawing is actually yaoi, which may explain why everyone leaps to the conclusions about his sexuality that they do–there’s a moment when he’s explaining his income and someone says “does this kind of thing make a lot of money?” and he says, “Well, no, but doujinshi sells like hotcakes.” And, as readers of Mangakast know, doujinshi are marketed specifically to ‘rotten girls,’ the girls and women who like BL and yaoi. 

But then, at another point, someone looks at Kudou’s very bishie assistant and says, “How is a guy like this working in THAT industry?” which made me wonder if they were thinking, “Shouldn’t the gays be writing yaoi and not hentai?” 

So, I don’t know. Possibly he writes both.

It’s not really the point of this manga.

This manga is a kind of reverse “found family.” 

While feeling overwhelmed at having to adult–specifically while filing his taxes–Kudou randomly proposes to a woman who looks like the female version of his special friend. Her name is Fusako… and she’s also maybe a little ace?

At least it’s difficult for her to understand why men want something more than friendship from a woman. 

Regardless, she’s feeling that pressure that a lot of Japanese people seem to get at a certain age to just be married already and so she says “yes.”  And thus begins a very lovely, slow-burn friendship.

I think the reason I feel like this series suffers a little in translation is that everyone treats this marriage as so weird. Even people who are rooting for the couple for Kiki’s sake seem to think that the marriage is a sham if they don’t have sex. This series was published in 2021. There are other manga explaining asexuality out there at this point, I think, and so part of me feels like it’s a little strange that no one suggests that maybe this is just a lovely way to be an ace family? They do get there by the final volume, but I guess I wanted a book that was more just about them BEING a family rather than whether or not their relationship was “real” to other people. 

I mean f*ck other people, am I right?

But, also there are a lot of puns in this one that make some of the jokes fall flat and leave English language readers head scratching. I suspect it was very funny and hip to Japanese audiences, especially since Kudou and Kiki speak the Kansai dialect. So, you know it’s COOL and happening, I guess? Or they’re hicks and that’s why it’s funny? WHO KNOWS. (If you *do* know, just drop an “Aho!” in the comments. I’ll know you’re one of the cool kids.)

My point is that whether you’re in the know or not can make this a difficult read. 

I think it’s still worth it, though. 

This book feels very queer to me on a lot of levels, but it will disappoint anyone looking for something gay. But, I’m a sucker for ace representation, queer/found families, and the art style is unusual enough that the whole thing is just an interesting visual read. So, on the whole, I’d recommend it, so long as “you’re okay with that kind of thing.”

Shuumatsu Touring / Touring After the Apocalypse by Saito Sakae

I got turned on to Touring After the Apocalypse by a random set of reviews in Reactor (nee Tor.com.) If I have any disappointment at all in this series, it is that I was unprepared to not have ready access to the sixth volume!

*shakes monitor hoping more falls out*

This manga is a combination of all my favorite things: slice of life, science fiction, and road trips.

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If you’ve been reading MangaKast for any length of time, you will know by now that my absolute favorite manga genre is slice of life. No slice of life manga is too boring for me! I’d probably read a manga about watching paint dry, so long as it was lovingly illustrated and full of random experiences of life in Japan.

Never fear, Touring After the Apocalypse is not nearly so dull! Though I will say that I got some serious Laid-Back Camp vibes from this one in places, despite the gorgeously drawn apocalyptic backdrops.

So what is it about? Touring After the Apocalypse follows two young women. Youko and Ari, (technically only one of them is human, the other is a robot) who have left “The Shelter,” and are off exploring a ruined Japan. There seems to have been something that sparked the civil defense army (one of their first minor adventures involves gathering army rations from abandoned tanks) into action, there are concerns about radiation, and giant craters where some buildings should’ve been, and absolutely no living people, but… all of this is really secondary to two girls on a solar-powered motorcycle driving around and looking at stuff.

Ostensibly, the human girl is attempting to recreate an epic road trip that her older sister went on–but it’s unclear (thanks to Japanese) whether this is her ACTUAL older sister or an “older sister” that she admires who did this decades or, possibly, even centuries earlier.

There’s a bit of mysticism thrown in as well, since Youko has vivid dreams that seem to actually take her into the past and, in a much later chapter, Ari has an extraterrestrial visit but… I don’t want to say none of that matters, since I actually care quite a bit about it all, but it somehow doesn’t affect the gentle, quietness of the road trip vibe.

I really loved this manga. I have no idea if anyone besides me will like it as much as I do. But, it’s very pretty, kind of weird, but basically a travelogue of places you could actually see (albeit in much better shape) in Japan today.

Should you read it? I don’t know. All I can say is that I was hooked from the start and got pulled all the way through the thirty five and a half chapters that currently exist online. It’s also one I’m going to keep my eye out for the next volume of. I will warn you that despite my breezy hot take on this manga, there are some tragic moments, particularly near the end of the fifth volume. This one could sleath make you cry.

Yen Press bought the English language rights, so you can find this one wherever fine manga is sold. Otherwise, as always, there is a link to an online version in the opening paragraph.

Akane-Banashi by Suenaga Yuki/Moue Takamasa

I’ve had a penpal in Japan for years. I’m behind at writing to her right now, but in the last few exchanges we discussed what I’d like to do if I ever came to visit her. Because I’d watched much of Shōwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjū, I told her I wanted to see a rakugo performance. She wrote back and basically said, “No, no. Too boring. What you want to see is taishū engeki! It’s way more fun and will make more sense!”

Yet, I keep being drawn to stories about rakugo… like, Akane-banashi.

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The story of Akane-banashi follows a young high schooler named Akane. Akane is the child of a rakugo performer who was, along with several other performers who were all expecting a promotion to a new level of their art, expectedly expelled. 

Since that fateful day, Akane has been striving to prove that her father’s style of rakugo is worthy. To do that end, at a very early age, she begged for lessons from a local master. Moved by her emotions, he agreed. 

Like a lot of manga about a specific profession, part of the fun of reading a series like this one is all the stuff you learn about rakugo. It’s incredibly slice-of-life. We get all sorts of lessons in concepts like kibataraki,”the mindset of taking tactful action.” There’s the telling of the stories of the stories and, of course, but the middle of volume two–an amateur competition for our budding storyteller to try to win.

 

This manga has all the beats that a reader might expect in a Shounen Jump property–unparalleled talent tempered by set-backs to Learn Important Lessons™ and rivals to strive to beat.  That may sound predictable, but like a good rakugo performance, predictable doesn’t necessarily mean boring. I ripped through the first three volumes and will be going back to my library to pick up the rest. 

Do I recommend it? I mean.. Maybe? As you can see, the art is also very JUMP. It’s good! But, it’s almost extraordinary in its ability to meet expectations. You ordered apple pie, you’re getting a very good apple pie, you know? Just to over-extend the metaphor, I happen to like apple pie about rakugo. It’s just that JUMP doesn’t exactly tend to recognize or reward innovative art. This is professional-grade, good art, mind you. 

I noticed in the official volumes there’s actually a rakugo consultant helping with the story. I have to wonder if the official rakugo association is secretly funding this so that people might get excited about something my 75 year old Japanese pen pal–who should be the perfect audience–thinks is boring and is NOT recommending to tourists.

Hirayasumi by Shinzou Keigo

I had a conversation today with a friend who likes to complain that her life is boring. She claims she’s not bored by life, but that no one would want to know about the mundane things she gets up to on a day-to-day basis. I listened, but said plainly, “My friend, let me introduce you to slice-of-life manga….”

I love stories like the one in Hirayasumi. This story, at its core, is about people just trying to figure out how to live their lives.

That’s it.

And I DEVOURED everything I could find of it.

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Hiroto Ikuta is a Freeter and is, honestly, living his best life.

Freeter is a Japanese slang term which Wikipedia describes as someone between the ages of 18 to 34 who is unemployed, underemployed, or otherwise lacks a full-time job. In a different manga, this would be Hiroto’s main conflict and source of angst.

Nah.

Hiroto loves his “meaningless” life. Or, at least, it doesn’t usually bring him down. He is more comfortable than most people would be working as little as he does, in part, because he inherited a house from the neighborhood granny.

Hiroto’s eighteen year old cousin, Natsumi, comes to live with him while she’s attending Tokyo’s premiere art school (while, of course, harboring secret dreams to write manga.) It’s through Natsumi and various flashbacks to his time with ‘granny,’ that we slowly learn things abut Hiroto beyond his generally sunny disposition.

We discover, for instance, that Hiroto walked away from a budding career as an actor. Just as he was starting to get more serious roles, he became disenchanted with the constant drive towards very specific kinds of success.

Now-a-days, he just wants to be happy and make other people happy.

Except he’s turning thirty.

Hiroto has a number of birthdays in the 69 chapters that are currently online at the time of this review. Its never explicitly stated that’s why his life starts changing in subtle ways, but there is a gentle background hum of “am I living without regrets?” for all the characters we interact with in this story. There is a real estate agent who is wondering if she’s missing out by not being married. There’s all of Natsumi’s college friends who are trying to figure out how to have adult friends and relationships and wondering if art is really their calling. There’s Hiroto’s best friend who discovers he’s about to be a new dad. All of them, even what we see in flashbacks of granny, have this quiet… it’s not a desperation, but more a longing. They long to know where they belong in the universe.

This sounds much heavier than the manga is. Most of it is about how taking time to enjoy food and look at the world will FEED YOUR SOUL, no matter where your head is at.

The cast of Hirayasumi are just ordinary people going through their ordinary lives. For my friend worrying about her “boring” life, she should know that there are literally hundreds of panels of people making food, hanging out playing video games, washing up, cleaning their houses, and going to work. Everyday stuff.

And, somehow, Shinzou-sensei made me want to live there.

If you like slice-of-life, I recommend this one.