“Dear Nagata Kabi-san, this is Nagata Kabi.”

We left Nagata-sensei at the end of Sabishi-sugi Rezu Fuzoku ni Ikimashita Report (さびしすぎてレズ風俗に行きましたレポ) (which was sold as My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness in English) looking at a building a life in the middle of crushing depression and a debilitating eating disorder. As the pages of Hitori Koukan Nikki (一人交換日記) open, she is still attempting to build that life with crushing depression and sudden, shocking fame. (How much fame? The cover of this book says that her first book has 4.8 million copies in print.) But no pressure.

Nagata-sensei’s journey is a merry-go-round. Left out of the normal development of human emotions and affection, she’s desperate to be loved, to be embraced, but incapable of functioning at the level she would need to build the relationships that provide those things. Torn between needing some kind of stability, and desiring adulthood and freedom, we see her moving in and out of her parent’s house over and over trying to find some kind of balance.

Determined to make it on her own, Nagata-sensei struggles with ever worsening depression – her darkness is very omnipresent in these pages, signified by increasing use of black in the art, as she all-but-literally drowns in her own misery. 

Nagata-sensei, though, really is determined and keeps working at her next book, this time for Shogakukan’s Big Comics Special. Although her story is fully autobiographical, it has enough general appeal to have a major publisher pick her up and run her work in their magazine. More success equals more pressure.

But, just when things seem too overwhelming, she meets someone. Someone who becomes important to her. For the first time in her life, Nagata-sensei is experiencing the kind of emotion she craves. And, miraculously, it’s returned. I won’t spoil the end of the book, because it made the rest of the book worth reading, frankly, and you too will be able to read it this June when it comes out as My Solo Exchange Diary from Seven Seas.

Let me editorialize here for a moment: I am convinced that the reason the first book sold so well was that it had “lesbian experience” in the title AND a relatable story for so many.  I bet this won’t sell nearly as well without the word “lesbian” in it. Why? Because Amazon does not have a Yuri or lesbian manga/comics category. So people put in the keyword lesbian to find stuff they might want. Then they read the description. No one  is going to find Hana & Hina Afterschool when looking for a “lesbian romance” because that phrase is never used in the description. How many people might have loved a cute, sweet lesbian romance? Who knows because the description calls it a “toy-shop romance.” This is why Amazon needs a Yuri category, but also why publishers have *got* to understand how description works and who it’s for. Because I feel so strongly about this, I’ve sent this all to Seven Seas. Update: Seven Seas tells me that they agree, and are putting this volume out as My Solo Exchange Diary: The Sequel to My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness.

Seven Seas does a reasonable job with description, compared with say, Yen, who use the surreally vague Japanese descriptions, but this one is just going to need some help to become as popular as the first volume. And it should be, Because it’s a harder read, but a better book.

It is a harder read. I squirmed during the chapters when her parents read her first book. Crushing depression is crushing, and I was feeling weighted down by Nagata-sensei’s struggle. And when she broke down after kissing someone she liked for the very first time in her life, I’m not ashamed to say I cried, too. Which is why I really liked the ending and very much look forward to Hitori Koukan Nikki, Part 2.

Ratings:

Art – 7 She definitely has a style
Story – 6 
Service – N/A, even when there is nudity
LGBTQ – 9

Overall – 8

I’m fascinated by the (maybe disproportionately?I don’t know) important role in the comics industry held by autobiographical comic essays both in the West and in Japan.