Mabataki (まばたき) is a collection of short stories by Battan, creator of Run Away With Me, Girl. This is another manga I picked up while in Japan (I think this one was picked up at the Shibuya Animate) because I had not seen anything about it. It was interesting, more than entertaining and both very good and not-good in places. It is also variably Yuri, depending on how much overt romance you require in your Yuri
The first story, arguably the Yuri-est of the bunch, follows a young woman who is called by someone else’s name when she purchases cigarettes from an elderly kiosk vendor. It is instantly obvious that the elderly woman imagines the young woman to be an old love from her high school days. It it poignant, and sad and ultimately not resolved in any meaningful way.
The other stories explore relationships between girls and women in varying uncomfortable ways. A girl who has everything offers a kind of patronage/friendship to girl who has nothing, and is rejected, at least in part because she didn’t understand a damn thing about the other girl.
The story that was the best was also the least entertaining for me. “Hatsunatsu no Soshiki” follows a girl who has just lost her mother. Around her, following her, with her at all times, crowding the space she occupies, are word ballons filled with all the places people have told the girl where her mother is. This is an uncomfortable, but very well done story about how personal grief is.
The final story follows a woman who meets a mermaid, maybe while on a vacation. This was a surprisingly sweet little story and I’m glad it was the final one in the collection.
Honestly, if you like Battan’s art, you’ll probably like this collection. You might even want to suggest it to Kodansha to license. As I read it, I discovered that I don’t particularly like Battan’s art. It was a shock to me, as I rarely have negative reactions to art in manga unless egregious service stands in for plot, and character. For some reason, as I continued reading, I just had the most viscerally negative reaction to this art. I’m not entirely sure why, but let’s just say I am not a fan.
Nonetheless this collection takes on some big emotions: Grief and loss, life and love and does some interesting things with them.
Ratings:
Because I found the art so unpalatable and it’s a collection, we’ll just got straight to an overall score
Overall – 6
I don’t regret reading this book, but I can’t imagine I’ll retain much beyond “Midori no Maka no Mizutama”‘s visual of grief crowding around the main character.
