Aoi Uroko to Suna no Machi / Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand by Komori Yoko

The other day, at the library, I picked up this poignant manga, Aoi Uroko to Suna no Machi/Mermaid Scale and the Town of Sand from the award-winning author Komori Yoko.

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I want to begin this review with a little aside that is mostly apropos of nothing, except that I am frustrated at people who jump to conclusions about anime and manga.

Just the other day, on The Internet, someone on my Feed posted this cartoon:

Which, yeah.

Not going to defend the pedophile. No f*cking way.

However, what bummed me out, was the extent to which all of the people reading this immediately jumped into the comments to say, “THIS is why I can never get into anime and manga.” I forced myself to hold my fingers from the keyboard as I scrolled past these comments because no good comes from attempting to defend the undefendable. There is no way to wade into the comment thread and say, “Bah, stuff like that doesn’t exist in manga!” because, of course, it does exist (and I’ve reviewed some of it here!). There are entire genres of ecchi and yaoi and yuri with very underaged-looking people and, of course, all that fan service sh*t.

Thanks to that, there’s nothing a person can say.

Even so, it still frustrates me because this is why, as an adult, I get side-eyed when I’m in the teen room at the library checking out manga. And, believe me, I HAVE gotten dark looks–even when the manga I’m checking out is Mermaid Scales and the Town of Sand, which is a story of a middle school-aged girl working through her complicated feelings around her parent’s divorce and the subsequent upheaval of moving from Tokyo to a small, seaside town in Japan.

The art in this manga is just stunning… despite it’s unusual, simplistic style.

And the story is sophisticated.

Tokiko remembers a mermaid rescuing her from drowning when she was four years old. She and her family were visiting her mothers’ hometown by the sea, and her mother had fallen asleep on the shore. Tokiko had wandered off too far slipped off what looks like the continental shelf, into a fathomless drop. Her memories are so vivid she can recall the color of the mermaid’s brilliant blue scales. (Which is the aoi [blue] of Aoi Uroko [Blue Scales] of the Japanese title, if you were wondering.)

Now, Tokiko’s parents are separated and her father has brought Tokiko back to this seaside town in order to live with her mother’s mother, while he searches for a new job. This town seems to have some strange connections to mermaids and a sea god known as Wadatsumi. On top of all these mysteries, there is a boy in her new school who looks hauntingly like the merman she remembers. All of it, Tokiko believes is, somehow, is connected to her mother.

And it is… though the fantasy elements never fully materialize, except as metaphors.

What I ended up loving about the story is how much of it is a quiet, contemplative look at what is essentially the grief of that moment (or moments) when you first discover that your parents are human beings with flaws, who make sometimes quite terrible mistakes. Although in this case, the biggest mistake Tokiko’s mom seems to make is being a bit of an airhead who falls for a man who isn’t Tokiko’s father. Even so, from Tokiko’s point of view this is something so complicated to contemplate that she has to learn to put in a box and drop into the deepest ocean of her subconscious until she’s ready to deal with it.

I enjoyed, too, watching this small town embrace Tokiko. She immediately makes friends and has the kinds of adventures I remember having at that age–where the group dares itself to enter the long, dark tunnel that’s been closed off. Is it dangerous because its structurally unsound… or is there a MONSTER lurking in there??

So, yeah, I just read a book about middle schoolers. I don’t know what that makes me. Never mind that Mermaid Scales and Town of Sand was marketed as josei in Japan to an adult, female audience.

Sigh.

At any rate, I’d recommend it, if you can withstand the dark looks.

Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off by Morikawa Yuu

If you’ve ever asked yourself “I wonder what Dr. Doom [fill-in other favorite villain] does on his day off? Does he go shopping in his full armor and cape or what? What’s he like when he relaxes?” then Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off is for you.

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If you’re looking for something fun and light, with a tiny bit of a heart, this manga is nearly perfect. There are a couple of weird subplots that I skim when I hit them (namely a very out of place story of a friendship between an oak tree spirit and a cherry tree spirit, but also some of the origin stories of the Good Guys–oh, and, of course, the weird Santa stuff), but, otherwise, I’m fully sold on this concept.

I tend to like really like fictional villains, however.

Over Easter weekend, I was on a panel at MiniCON that was meant to plumb the depth of this question, “Why do we like to ship dark with light?” but it got derailed by a fellow panelist insistent on shaming us for enjoying immoral and “cruel” characters. I’ve since spent a lot of time pondering the questions we were never allowed to fully consider. One of the conclusions I’ve come to is that it is inherently sexy to consider, “What is this person like when they’re at home, relaxed?” It unveils them, right? Being shown this intimate moment makes the person automatically more vulnerable, exposed, and authentic.

Thus, with villains, the stakes are higher. Vulnerable is something they are never meant to be.

The villain is also someone who is often larger-than-life. Thus, the instant we start to imagine them as “real” people who need to do their laundry or decide which ice cream to buy at a 7/11, they just become ridiculous. It’s just funny to think about. Cute. This is the same reason why Way of the House Husband doesn’t have to work that hard to be funny. The situation is already hilarious. Gangsters doing battle with the dishes (or, famously, a roomba), is just… it’s absurd and ridiculous and fun.

As soon as you take the villain off the battlefield, strip him of the costume of his office, he becomes… something else. More human, certainly, but possibly even, this guy:

I also love that he’s gracing the convenience store with his presence. That’s some prime villainy, right there.

One of the things I ended up liking about this manga is that we aren’t expected to believe that The General is anyone all that terribly different when he’s “on,” as opposed to when he is “off.” In fact, we get a very early scene in one first chapters in which we see the The General entirely from the point of view of a new recruit. The General is terrible to behold (and if you watch the anime in Japanese, the voice actor is great at sounding completely evil and threatening when just saying “hello,”) but he sees this overworked subordinate and says, “Listen, this war won’t be won overnight. Leave some of this work for tomorrow. Go home, relax.” And… this scene does a couple of things. First, as I noted, it establishes that The General is really just a guy who values time off, not only for himself, but for everyone, including his lowliest subordinate. Second, when we later see The General being kind to strangers and animals, it feels believable. Like, maybe The General is a good guy, deep down, being Evil is just his job.

But he is good at his job.

And I really appreciate that. Half way through what’s out on the scanlations so far, I found myself craving more and more of the “on” persona. This guy–

The one with the tail and the claws.

I was glad to see more of The General “at work,” because I think this story works best where there’s a bit of a balance. There are times both in the manga and the anime where, if I’m not reminded that this guy is the Big Bad, it could stray into boring.

Except that I’m also a fan of manga where the entire plot is, “and we go camping.” I think it helps that The General is not from Earth. You can see the ears, but we also see that the headquarters is on some dark shadow moon and the characters often speak of a far away, Mother Star. As an aside: This may be a direct reference to The Power Rangers, but I never watched because I am a fake fan. The Rangers clearly ARE the Power Rangers, they all go by color names and the one adult female character is, in fact, the Pink Ranger. My point is, slice-of-life stuff often works better for me when the characters are doing something uniquely Japanese-feeling, such as finding wonder in nature.

Like, there’s an entire chapter where The General just goes to the beach.

I can’t believe I got this far without noting that The General is also weirdly obsessed with pandas. This is actually a huge part of the humor.

Anyway, I love the art, particularly whenever we get a glimpse of The General’s darker persona beneath the hair.

As the anime is how I found this manga, I would recommend, weird Santa Claus stuff included

Blue Period (Vol. 1) by Yamaguchi Tsubasa

If I were a better organized person, I’d have read Blue Period immediately after having reviewed Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey. They are both about a personal journey into fine art and the struggles of getting into highly competitive art school. Blank Canvas, being of course, an autobiographical memoir, and Blue Period being fictional.

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I’m not sure I’d appreciate the magnitude of, our hero, Yatora’s undertaking if I had not previously read Blank Canvas. Yatora is presented as a natural when it comes to art. Technically, he may have a lot to learn, but he’s portrayed as someone with a good ‘eye,’ who intrinsically understands how to imbue art with emotion.

Even though he doesn’t take anything in his life seriously, Yatora decides, after seeing a student’s painting that moves him, to maybe give art a go. He tries to capture the faint blue feeling of Shibuya in the early dawn…

And immediately, if clumsily, is able to capture it.

This inspires Yatora to go all in. This guy who was very likely headed to some typical salaryman future is suddenly obsessed with trying to get into art school.

And… I’m rooting for him.

I think we all like the fantasy of genius being this easy. At least Yatora has been characterized as someone who is just very good at putting in the time to accomplish the skill. We discover in the first few panels that despite looking like a delinquent and hanging out late nights with his sporty gang of guy friends, Yatora is a good student. People think he’s smart, but he tells us it’s not that, he just learned good study habits and keeps to them. So, I mean, at least it’s set-up in Yatora’s character that he’s not necessarily some kind of savant, who is just going to randomly decide to draw one day and become the best of the best. We even get a couple of scenes where we get a hint that maybe Yatora used to draw, but had given up on it at some point.

Although maybe this is just one of those things he bought for school, as Yatora is basically untrained. We, though his lessons, learn about perspective, shading, etc., etc. There is, of course, an art teacher who is odd as a duck, but who also instrumental in encouraging Yatora. I like her? She reminds me of my friend Laurel.

I have some friends who tried watching the anime, but gave up on it. The manga has a certain amount of urgency, in part driven by Yatora’s desire, passion and curiosity, but also by the upcoming deadline for the art school applications. I could see myself continuing to read this one, honestly.

The art in it is visually arresting, even in black and white, but it does feel like the kind of story that would improve in color. You can see Yamaguchi trying to be artsy in certain panels. Like, he is trying to give you the impression of light and color, while stuck in the black & white medium of manga pages.

Honestly, it mostly works. If you are interested in a story about art, this might be for you.

If you like Yamaguchi-sensei’s art style, but would rather read a very sad, bittersweet boys’ love romance, you can check out Kokuhaku no Jikan about a boy who has an accident and loses the ability to remember anything except the day before, in which he was promised a love confession. It’s very sad, but quite lovely. Yamaguchi-sensei also drew the manga version of She and Her Cat.

Ai wa Chitto mo Rakuja Nai / Love Isn’t The Slightest Bit Easy by Kiriyuu Kiyoi

Even though, when I found Ai wa Chitto mo Rakuja Nai / Love Isn’t The Slightest Bit Easy, I was actually looking for something far smuttier, it turns out I’m a sucker for stories that feature writers.

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As discussed in many previous reviews, I also tend to enjoy stories where gayness is just presumed. I understand it’s a wonderful fantasy to imagine that every guy out there is just one good kiss (or f*ck) from becoming queer, but you get to skip a lot of faux introspection if the assumption is ‘not only gay, but one look and I knew you were the top…’

So, there are two stories in this volume. The first follows a writer, Kamiyama, who has a very interesting writing process. He needs sex to get inspired. He’s been in a slump for five years because his last boyfriend left him to get married to a woman. After hiring our Jack of all Trades (handyman) / former delinquent, Koga, Kamiyama decides that maybe Koga might be just the ticket to get the old juices flowing again (AS IT WERE.)

Kamiyama tries very hard to be rude and off-putting so that Koga will treat this relationship as Just Sex.

To be fair to Kamiyama, Koga immediately puts his foot in it when he asks the author the DREADED QUESTION: How’s that next book coming?

To which he gets this look (which many of us know well because we have used it on people_:

The face that simultaneously “How DARE you?” and “I WILL murder you.” But which really means, “OMG, I’m a total fraud, I will never write again, I hate my life, who thinks writing is a job to aspire to… WHY GOD WHY?” I’m pretty certain my wife can attest to having been pinned by this exact glare many, many times.

The story is really only two chapters long because Koga convinces Kamiyama that 1) he will never accept money for sex, so stop trying to pay him off, and 2) after snuggles are nice. Probably my favorite scene is that after sex, when Kamiyama usually runs off to write, Koga convinces him that he COULD at least hang out in the bed to write.

Which, as a writer, I can say is the height of romance when you’re under deadline, under contract.

The second story in the volume follows Kamiyama’s “manager.” This is one area of Japanese publishing that baffles me, as there is, to my knowledge, nothing like this in the American publishing industry. Authors will sometimes hire assistants, but publishing companies do not have anyone who makes house calls to make sure an author is writing. I mean, I was only ever a mid-lister? But, I am friends with people who are on Neil Gaiman’s level and NONE of them have anything like this. Assistants they hired themselves, yes. Publishing “managers”? No. But, this seems to be very similar to how editors appear to work in manga, so I would absolutely believe that Japanese publishing is similar.

Regardless, the second story follows this guy, the manager, who is a very fox-faced self-proclaimed bottom, who also is really trying to not fall in love, particularly not with the guy he tends to hook up with a lot. I skimmed the second story? I was vaguely interested in whether or not the regular hook-up was going to turn out to be married, but I was not at all surprised when he wasn’t.

The thing I noticed the most between the two stories is that both are graphic enough that I could tell that Koga wore a condom and the love interest/casual hook-up of the second story did not.

So, yeah, there are no invisible penises in this story. so please read responsibly. I think the trade-off is the art? As you can see from the above panels, it’s OK. Sometimes the bodies get too elongated in the way that yaoi sometimes can, but, you know, it’s serviceable (and far better than I could ever do, of course.)

This one feels hit or miss to me. If it sounds like your thing, go for it. If not, I don’t think you’re missing an undiscovered gem. I think that the people who will enjoy this the most are fellow writers.

Hoshizora wo Mitsumeta Sono Ato de / After Staring at the Starry Sky by Kida Bisco

… And now back to our safe, little bishies.

I don’t even know what I was looking for when I stumbled across Hoshizora wo Mitsumeta Sono Ato de / After Staring at the Starry Sky. Probably smut, but, you know, sometimes you gotta settle for romance.

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If you are someone who actually needs to use a wheelchair, I would not necessarily recommend reading this one. I suspect it would drive you crazy on a lot of levels, but also a big part of the romance seems to involve the astrophotographer, Tougo Amase, randomly picking up and carrying around, princess style, our protagonist, Subaru Miyazawa, without first getting consent or even with much warning.

I mean, I am able-bodied so I can’t really comment here about how inappropriate this seems, but I don’t even give a hug to someone before asking if it’s okay to touch them. I can not imagine just picking someone up and moving them around like furnature.

Technically, this is not the basis of the romance.

Subaru has been crushed out on Togo via his art for so long that his best lady friend, Akari, immediately hooks the two of them up as soon as there is an opportunity. And, then like the good wingman she is, Akari instantly finds other places to be. I think Akari was my favorite character, honestly? She’s also the one who brings the guys back together after they separate after the inevitable misunderstanding.

Look at that face. She knows what she’s doing!

At any rate, the feelings grow between the two guys after they start traveling together, particularly to Iriomote-Ishigaki National Dark Sky Park. There’s only a moderate amount of discussion about how difficult it might be to move around in this park in a wheelchair and it seems to be solved with Togo pushing. This is a fantasy, clearly, because we are also supposed to imagine that somehow these two young men slept chastely together in a tent.

It is not until the extra chapter at the end of the book that we discover that Subaru is only numb from the knees down… which begs a lot of questions all of a sudden, but also answers a bunch of others. I spent a lot of time, of course, comparing this to Perfect World, which I’d read some time ago, which also has a love interest in a wheelchair. Perfect World seems to be more willing to deal with some of the things people might rather not think about which might come up in a relationship with someone disabled in some way. But, then I thought… well, I mean, maybe someone out there just wants a nice, fantasy romance without the realism? Maybe I should shut up and let them have it?

There is no sex in this story. Just two pretty guys hanging out, liking each other. The art is nice enough. There’s one really lovely moment when Togo, who normally won’t take pictures of people, is moved to take one of Subaru. This moment returns to reunite the boys when they’re being stupid and apart.

Would I recommend it? I don’t know. It’s fine? It is licensed in English so you can always try pressuring your library into buying it, if you don’t (or can’t) spend the money yourself.

Last Gender: Nanimono demo nai Watashitachi / Last Gender: When We Are Nameless by Taki Rei

I promised a return to smut, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to meet you halfway. There is a lot of nudity and sex in Last Gender: Nanimono demo nai Watashitachi / Last Gender: When We Are Nameless, but I’m not sure it counts as smut, per se.

I don’t know exactly what was happening in Japan in 2020-2021, but this is yet-another “gender and sexual minorities 101,” type of manga, but this one is fictionalized and framed around a sex bar in California where sexual minorities can meet and mingle.

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I was actually able to get the first volume of Last Gender from the Saint Paul Public Library, but, if you follow the link above, you can read the scanlation of first two volumes (the series is complete in three.) It’s an interesting set-up because the stories get told in a serial manner, by which I mean, a person introduced in the first chapter will tell their backstory in the next, and on and on, through various sexual and gender identities.

Things that appear in this book that rarely get much attention include an aro character who is not also ace. I’ve had aro friends complain about this, and so I can imagine that it might be nice to find a sympathetic aromantic character who is sexually active. For myself I got introduced to lithosexuality (someone who does not want romantic and sexual feelings reciprocated), as well as greygender (which I’d had a sense of, but never seen dramatized in a story.)

For the most part, these characters get–if not happy endings, a sense of belonging. There is, generally, this attitude I really like that I’ve come across a number of times now, which is this idea that you are what you are RIGHT NOW. That a person does themselves a big favor by allowing that they might change (or they might not.) By accepting a label, that doesn’t mean it has to define you exactly or even all the time. And, in many ways, the challenge is not letting anyone define you–not even your own community–but yourself. You get to decide which parts fit and which don’t and it doesn’t make you “less queer” or “not queer enough.”

That’s a pretty wholesome message for such a smutty manga.

I also love Taki-sensei just assuming America has sex bars, like it’s no big deal. (Private sex clubs, yes. I mean, technically, that’s what this is. Our first story implies that you need a membership card, but later in volume 2 a student is just able to get in, as if he just walked in off the street. But, America has nothing like Japan’s host/ess bars.) I suspect Taki-sensei would be surprised by how Puritanical most Americans/American cities are.

At any rate, despite the mostly feel-good aspect of a lot of these chapter long stories, I should warn readers, however, that the second volume focuses heavily on a character who loses his lover to suicide, after to being outed against his will. Even the scanlation has a trigger warning for homophobia, bullying, and bigotry, as well as information about a hotline for suicide prevention. But, that story, as harsh as it is, is actually largely about internalized homophobia and working through it… at least to some extent–and, thus, has a kind of coming-to-terms ending. There’s a sense that that character is starting the road to recovery, at any rate.

There are a lot of naked boobs in this. The penises, of course, are invisible, whited out–even on the trans woman, which is telling? Like, we will rate a book R, so long as it allows the “male” gaze to see all of a woman it wants, and yet holds this double standard if the woman we turn our acceptable male gaze upon has a penis. Like, we get to look a her boobs, but not all of her. Because penises are supposed to belong only to men, and thus, if exposed, make this book IMMEDIATELY X-Rated. (It angers me? Not only for the obvious reasons, but also because the censorship implies that there is a part of this woman that is NOT a woman. If we are allowed to “male gaze” all of a women’s body in R-rated things, then her penis should be part of that! Full stop.) WTF. In a book about gender and sexual expression, this censorship is incredibly hypocritical.

But, I suspect the whiting out happened on the official English translation side. Again, it’s just something that I imagine would surprise and horrify Taki-sensei, who set this story in California, a place that they imagined to be some kind of sexual freedom paradise.

Anyway, despite my complaints, I highly recommend this. The sex is sexy and the characters all have fascinating stories of coming out and coming to accept themselves.

So, if this sounds up your alley, check it out. The third volume, which I have not yet read, though I plan to look for it at the library, seems poised to follow the mysterious club owner whom we know nothing about in terms of sexuality or gender.

Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey by Higashimura Akiko

I feel like I need to apologize to my regular readers. I have not been reading a lot of smut this year. What can I say? I’ve been stuck hanging out at the local library and this what happens…

I promise that will change.

In the meantime, in keeping with my policy of reviewing everything I’ve been reading, I present: Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, This manga is another memoir/autobiography of a mangaka, this time by the author of Princess Jellyfish.

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Despite the fact that I have literally read dozens of manga about manga, both fictionalized and autobiographical, I’m still often very sucked into these kinds of stories.

I suspect that one reason is that, more often than not, I can see a hint of my own creative journey in them. For those of you who don’t already know, I make my living as a fiction writer. Not unlike becoming a mangaka, becoming a published author is a weird, highly-competitive, often heartbreaking career. A lot of people want this job, but not many of us actually make it–and those of us who do (to varying definitions of “success”)–have a lot of ups and downs… usually more of the latter than former.

In this way, I’m probably uniquely well-suited to appreciate stories like Kakukaku Shikajika / Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, so bear that in mind as you read this review. Because, honestly, in many ways, if you’ve read one, you’ve basically read them all.

Hagashimura-sensei, however, is a skilled enough storyteller to be aware that she needs to have a twist on the usual formula in order to standout. So, Kakukaku Shikajika (which literally translates as So-and-So and Such-and-Such), is framed as a kind of love letter to a teacher, Hidaka Kenzou, who she would would refer to as ‘sensei’ for the rest of her life. She gives you much of what you may have come to expect from this kind of memoir, but the story basically begins with Akiko’s introduction to Hidaka and his strange little seaside studio, and it ends with his death.

The series, I should note, is complete in 5 volumes.

And, it’s a very compelling story.

Hidaka’s devotion to fine art and, eventually, to Akiko, is as strange, brash, and honest as Hagashimura-sensei portrays him. Hidaka just a good dude, in that way that your cranky, yelling uncle can be a good dude, you know? And, kind of like with an uncle like that, Akiko doesn’t QUITE know what to do with his affection. In fact, a large part of the series is Akiko coming to terms with the fact that she lied to, ignored, and ultimately sort of mistreated a guy who was really just trying to look out for her in the best way he knew how.

Her excuse, which I think is valid, is that Akiko came of age in a time when admitting to wanting to be a mangaka was a little like me announcing I was going to write science fiction in the 1980s. Like, science fiction for me (and manga for her), at that time, was seen as something that only really maladjusted NERDS were into and no one (and especially not one’s parents or mentors) could fathom how anyone would actually make money doing such malarky.

Because of this stigma, Akiko ends up going to university for Fine Art. Her sensei, Hidaka, assumes that this is her dream and so, unwittingly, ends up pressuring her to be his kind of artist, that is to say “serious.” Eventually, she realizes that, no, she just doesn’t have the passion for that. What she really, really wants to do is the “crass” art of manga writing and drawing.

I think this sort of decision can be somewhat universal? Like, it’s the moment that some of us have had when we realize that there are jobs and there are VOCATIONS. I’ve had lots and lots of jobs (some of them, like Akiko, even after I’d broken into publishing), but writing has always been my VOCATION, my passion. In a lot of ways, this is her struggle: realizing that sometimes we’re just called to do weird things. The universe comes knocking and says, “Yes, this twisted road is the one for you.”

Once Akiko starts devoting her time and energy to this “lesser” art, she feels more and more guilty about not doing the kind of art Hidaka wanted her to. Once she starts getting published in more and more places that people read, she eventually has to confess the truth to him. Turns out, he’s more than fine with her choice, but, fundamentally, their relationship has already broken down at this point. Plus, as we all know from the six dozen other manga about manga we’ve all read, being a mangaka requires an insane (to the point of being health-damaging) amount of overtime.

The story itself, then, is bittersweet.

Even when Hidaka reaches out to her when he’s been diagnosed with lung cancer, Akiko is not able to drop everything to spend the time that’s likely needed to repair their relationship. To be fair to her, it’s not just her career at this point, that’s keeping her in Osaka, but also her child, whom she raising alone after a divorce.

As an aside? Apparently, she wrote a whole manga about this child? I say this because it’s sort of just presented in the series as matter-of-course that we know how this kid came along and how she feels about it all, but I really had no idea, not having read that particular manga (which MIGHT be Mama wa Tenparist, which apparently translates as Mama at Wit’s End, which also seems highly relatable.)

That’s the thing about Higashimura-sensei. She writes characters and is herself a character who is very relatable. Even coming to this with no interest in manga creation or publishing, I think a reader could enjoy this just as a slice-of-life story? There are moments, when Higashimura-sensei jumps around in the chronology of the narrative in a way that you can only do when the readers understands that this is Real Life, but, generally, it reads far more like a story than a lot of others.

The art is, of course, quite good. According to some source I read (possibly the Wikipedia page) several of the volumes include extra sketchbook pages to show off her finer art. I will admit that after having checked the first one out from the library, I failed to figure out how to use my new St. Paul Public Library card (I am a more regular user of a different system, Ramsey County), got frustrated, and just read the scanlations. Because I read online through the pirates, I’m not sure I saw all the art, though I may have.

At any rate, I do recommend this one, if you’re up for more memoir.

Nonnonba by Mizuki Shigeru

The back of this manga describes itself as a “poetic memoir,” though I feel like the term semi-autobiographical might also apply. It’s basically the lightly fictionalized story of Mizuki-sensei‘s early life in the remote coastal city of Sakaiminato and the woman, whom he nicknames Nonnonba, who tells him many of the stories of yokai that would become fundamental to his later works. One of the obviously fictional bits is that Mizuki-sensei has conversations with and interactions with yokai and that sort of spooky, but lighthearted tone left me unprepared for some of the more serious turns in this 408-page manga.

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Let’s go right into it, shall we?

Even though one of the early color spreads mentions a character that we’re introduced to much later in the volume, Miwa, as having been “sold,” I was fully unprepared for a primary school age girl to be very matter-of-factly sent into a geisha house in Kobe. It is both explicit that Miwa, whom Shigeru has befriended, is just old enough to consider sending to school, but also that this is slavery. They refer to the man who at first appears to be her father as a “slaver,” and there is a scene where he is clearly in the business of selling other women and girls into sex slavery.

And, the story gets more hardcore because Shigeru doesn’t want this life for his friend, but he’s basically talked out of trying to rescue her by saying that it would be too “troublesome” for both himself and Miwa. He is counseled to hold his peace and let her go.

And so he does.

Miwa, like, I dunno, ten?

And, that’s the story the book ends with–this absolutely horrific story that’s told with a gentle sort of melancholy of a friendship lost to fate. Like, I dunno, the inevitability of a favorite pet’s death or something.

God it sucks to be a woman in Japan. Because the only other girl near Shigeru’s age that we meet is his cousin, Chigusa, who is dying (and eventually succumbs) to tuberculosis.

Oof.

The only thing about Chigusa’s story that is nice is that it inspires an incredible spread of Shigeru’s imaginative flight with her into the ‘hundred thousand worlds,’ a Buddhist afterlife.

Meanwhile, Shigeru and all the young men in his life are having these wonderfully raucous lives where they’re playing at being soldiers, taunting each other into haunted houses, and generally skipping school to get up to no good while interacting with the local yokai. All of which, while violent in places, seems delightfully wild and free.

Ah, a boy’s life is the life for me.

Alas, the book reads a whole lot differently as a woman. It’s still well worth the read–the art, while very stylized, is very detailed and fantastic–but I think female readers should be cautioned to be braced for impact. Just don’t attach to any of the young female characters and you’ll be all right. Nonnonba, herself, is fantastic character and, I can spoil for you, makes it the final reel, as it were. So, if you want to invest in her story, you absolutely can.

The monster art is pretty fantastic, and, if you like autobiographical manga, I absolutely recommend this one–unlike a lot of manga artist’s autobiographies, this one really doesn’t tell the story of Shigeru’s art, more his foundational childhood memories, particularly of yokai.

Unfortunately, no one has scanlated this one, so if you want to read it, I recommend checking your local library or taking the plunge and buying the MASSIVE official English-language volume. I will say that if you’re on the fence, there are several lovely stories in here including one in which thanks to Shigeru’s highly-educated, but weirdly incompetent father, the family ends up harboring a knife-wielding bank robber that I would say is fully worth the price. Amazon has it listed around $12 US, which is a good deal considering how many pages this volume is.

This manga is a classic and an award-winner for good reason…. I just wasn’t prepped for life as a young girl in Japan in the 1930s.

Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna / She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat by Yuzaki Sakaomi

At the library, I came across this lovely, wholesome yuri, She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat. In a lot of ways, this feels like someone said, “What if, What Did You Eat Yesterday? but lesbians?!” Except, unfortunately, it turns out that women have complicated relationships with food all over the world.

CONTENT WARNING: Food, Eating Disorders, Fatphobia, Nonconsensual food restriction, Shaming around Food Consumption

SPOILERS

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Nomoto, just like the title tells you, loves to cook. If she has any problem, it’s that, as a single gal, she has a tendency to make way more than she can reasonably eat. One day, on the way home from work, she runs into her neighbor, Kasuga, a big woman who clearly likes to eat.

I have to tell you? I was immediately in love with Kasuga. She’s possibly the butchest woman I have ever seen in a yuri. She’s fucking huge and has a belly, but is not portrayed as “ugly fat,” or even “custesy fat,” do you know what I mean? She looks LIKE ME. Like, I have wider hips, bigger boobs, and am way, way shorter, but this is my body type. I’m just kind of a presence. Big, taking up space, enjoying the fuck out of my sixteen buckets of KFC.

I love her.

And, so does Nomoto. At first, this is a friendship of convenience, ala, “I like to cook, you like to eat, let’s make an arrangement.” But, very quickly, we see Naomoto adore the way that Kasuga eats–she full-body enjoys a good meal.

I could have read pages and pages of these two women just cooking meals together, shopping, and eating, but, early on, we get a hint that there’s a dark cloud around Kasuga’s relationship with food. She refuses to be shamed into eating less, but it’s clear she gets harassed. Part of why she quickly agrees to eating in with Nomoto is not only because it reduces cost, but also because she doesn’t have to put up with cooks and waiters who will short change her and not offer her the portion-sizes she wants.

Which is only the tip of the bullsh*t iceberg.

It turns out that Kasuga grew up in a “traditional” household where it was simply understood that the girls and women of the family got fed second, ate the leftovers that the men and boys couldn’t finish.

What is frustrating about this tidbit of information is that I normally like to corroborate what I read and link to articles to show that, yes, this a thing. But, if you google this idea, all you get are articles on why it’s healthy to eat less and how the Japanese are so GREAT at staying thin, and you can too with portion control! You can put in the ACTUAL WORDS ‘food abuse in Japan’ and what you get back are 10 great ways to stay thin, the Japanese way!

It’s enraging.

Because this is abuse.

And THANK GOD that is how it’s framed in this manga. Kasuga still gets pressure from her family to return home and be a dutiful daughter, they even pull the “you need to care for your aging mother,” but she simply refuses. She’s like, look, you fed the boys, let the boys do the work for once.

They later get a new neighbor who has been shamed about her inability to eat much. I’m less clear about what’s going on with her (she reads to me as someone with a fairly serious eating disorder, but it’s presented as ‘just her way of being,’ which it very well might be). Regardless, both Kasuga and Nomoto find ways to include her in the fun without the pressure to partake.

Nomoto also does something you don’t see as often in yuri, too, which is that she has that scene that I’ve talked about in yaoi, where the main character suddenly decides that ‘maybe gay?’ and actually does research into it. Nomoto’s is very natural, actually? She does some Googling and gets some information, but what really makes her start to understand her own lesbianism is connecting with a fellow food blogger who retweeted a link to a lesbian movie.

What I love about this manga is that I was briefly worried that the new blogger was going to become a rival love interest, and be the thing that pushes the two women together… but no. The mangaka doesn’t go there. Women don’t exist to tear each other down. Instead the blogger becomes a confidant immediately, someone for Nomoto to have as a sounding board for her new feelings.

And then the blogger comes out as ace/aro, and I’m like, IS YUZAKI-SENSEI TRYING TO MAKE A PERFECT MANGA FOR ME??? Because they have succeeded.

Anyway, if you can survive some of triggering food related stuff, this might also be a perfect manga for you. I love the art. Everyone is drawn cute, but real. Like, our new neighbor also looks like a traditional lesbian? It makes me very happy. I will recommend it heartily to anyone who can read about food.

Or watch…. as there is a live-action tv series, although finding a version of it that’s not riddled with spyware may be difficult. It looks cute as f*ck, though.

Imouto wa Neko / My Sister (Vols. 1-2), The Cat by Senko

In a complete left-turn from the horror manga I’ve been reading, I picked up Imouto wa Neko / My sister, The Cat.  This story is one of those delightfully absurd stories that is published from time to time, in which the world just has human-sized cats that can talk. Don’t ask… Shhhh! Just ENJOY it.

SPOILERS

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This manga reminds me a little of the one about the dogs who just suddenly turn human or The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today, where sh*t just happens, and it is not for the reader to wonder why. The point of Imouto wa Neko/My Sister, The Cat is simply that it would be f*cking adorable if your baby sister were a cat.

Basically, this is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get sort of manga. The story is of a human, Nekota, who was orphaned and, since all of his human relations found the idea of a nearly-grown young man too troublesome, he was adopted into a family of cats. So, he’s the only human in a family of cats, it works out well since his name includes ‘neko,’ which nearly all manga fans at this point probably recognize as the Japanese word for cat. His sister is Neneko. So, it’s already overloaded in cuteness.

Generally, if I had any complaint at all about this series it would be that it plays heavily into the whole older-brother worship stuff that can feel vaguely incestual to Western audiences. In this case, I feel like it stays on the wholesome end of the spectrum, but possibly because to cross it would be kitten-man love and my brain simply can’t go there…. even with Nekoto’s best high school friend clearly being a kitten fetisher. (It take Nekoto to the second volume before it occurs to him that maybe posting pictures of his cute baby sister on Insta might attract the wrong sort.)

It’s also a little bit weird that Nenenko (the baby sister) doesn’t talk. The rest of the small kittens seem able to, but I think we’re just supposed to imagine that she has trouble communicating. No one seems particularly worried about it, especially since she tends to express her needs and wants just fine. It does make the brother/sister relationship a lot more akin to HAVING AN ACTUAL CAT as your sister, but whatever. That actually adds to the humor, so I’m willing to roll with it.

Speaking of strange relationships, there’s a little black cat who is quite attracted to Nekoto, who seems a little unclear on the concept that he might have been adopted.

Which is fair, since there’s at least one little brother at the cat day care/kindergarten who clearly has a cat older brother and… who knows how that happened.

I shouldn’t be thinking this hard about it all. It’s just cute. If you are looking for some mindless cute, this is absolutely the manga for you.