(en) Listen to my story
Uoyama-sensei’s “Hinata-san, Hoshino desu” has wrapped up, and reading the final chapter reminded me of their previous work, “Yankee-kun to Hakujou Girl.” Both times, the author covered a topic about, for a lack of better term, overlooked people in society. Hakujou Girl is about blind people, and Hina-Hoshi is about social recluses.
Sounds heavy at first glance, but actually both of those manga are cheerful romance slash slice-of-life stories. Just simple and enjoyable, fun read. To be honest, they’re not smash hits that’ll echo in the minds and hearts of people in the years to come, but one thing I really like about them is that they’re great examples for what manga, and every other most entertainment-first mediums, can do: teach things in a light-hearted manner.
Well, both of them can be really preachy at times. I guess Uoyama-sensei has a point to make and she wants to drive the message home too. Still! I came in wanting to read some cute love story, and came out knowing that blind people can work in a fast food restaurant AND feeling heartwarmingly giddy from reading some cute love story.
And even more recently, Oshimi Shuzou-sensei’s “Okaeri Alice” also wrapped up. I thought he was gonna write something normal for once and expected a trap romcom, but it ended up being an introspective work on his feelings on gender identity (I think it was touched on previously in “Boku wa Mari no Naka” but not as deeply as this one). The lengthy afterword that he wrote following the last chapter made it clear.
But I’m not saying that every manga should highlight a social problem and express some social commentary or anything like that. One of my favorite manga, “Kasane,” has none of those. Well, maybe it kinda does? It tells a story about a deadass ugly girl (and not in a shoujoesque “fat and unkempt” kind of way, Kasane simply has a hideous facial structure that makeup can’t fix) going around stealing faces of pretty girls using her mom’s magic lipstick so she can have a turn to shine under the spotlight… and I guess the social commentary here is that ugly people get shit on while the pretties get to rule the world. Anyway, I didn’t feel like the story was trying to preach me anything. It simply told me the story of miss ugly duckling Kasane and the many struggles she has to go through just to get her own happiness.
But I like it. Oftentimes I can’t clearly tell why some titles have such strong impression on me–they just do. Maybe because it felt like I was looking into the minds of the authors. Playing spectator to a world they envisioned. Because it’s clearly their story.