We recently had the pleasure of three guest reviews for Plongée dans la nuit, the French edition of Yoru to Umi, by Goumoto. I had read the first volume in Japanese, myself, then forgotten in the crush of other series to continue. So when Hametsu no Koibito, Volume 1 (破滅の恋人) by Goumoto wandered across my feed, I thought I’d give it a chance. What I found is an intriguing story that is gripping and mysterious.

Arisu is a serious girl who finds herself wandering an apparently abandoned house where a friend has lost a teddy bear. The school kids use the grounds for tests of courage and other scary stories. Arisu finds the bear…but also finds that the house is not at all abandoned. A mysterious, attractive woman lives there. Arisu immediately thinks of her as a witch. A friendly witch to be sure, but Arisu, being a serious young lady, is not about to be bewitched with cookies and tea. She nonetheless keeps coming back and, while they never speak of anything important, finds that being around this older woman is changing her in ways she could not predict.

Like Arisu, it’s hard for readers to not marvel at the apparently carefree life of this woman, who is deeply alone, but not apparently lonely. When we do learn a bit about her, it’s to see her rage at a man who once was a boy she raged at when she was a young girl. Who she is and what she is doing remain mostly a mystery.

But Arisu, so serious, but brave, has become braver. She’s inspiring her timid classmate to come out of her shell, merely by being. And her piano teacher can sense a change in her playing…a maturity she has recently developed.

All of this is happens in a tone poem of a manga that has a frisson of “creepy” without a single actually creepy thing happening, and a feeling of anticipation that surely something must happen…and explosive moments of surprisingly small things actually happening. It’s an amazing pocket watch of a manga – teeny, tiny movemenst, intricately crafted and interlocked, causing each other to move and change. I’m definitely going to continue the series, if only to see if time simply progresses or the springs come unwound.

Despite the title, there’s no lovers, no Yuri, no relationships, but the “witch” definitely is the source of destruction, as well as it’s victim.

Ratings:

Art – 8 Sketchy and evocative
Story – 7 No idea what it’s doing, but I’m in
Characters – 8
Service –  0 No, but it always feels as if there might be next page
Yuri – 0

Overall – 8

This really taught story about an unlikely friendship makes for a surprisingly good manga.

This world is a fascinating and wonderful place.

A few months ago, a Japanese crowdfund project wandered over my feed and I immediately backed it. Kimono artist Remake-ya Candy and photographer Sato Hiroko were collaborating on a photo album of women wearing men’s kimono. Candy’s goal is to bring kimono back as daily wear, and Sato is a photographer who combines whimsical and classical beautifully. They seemed like a great collaboration for this “genderless kimono” project.

This week I received my copy of the Josei ga Otoko Kimono o Kiru Shashin-shuu (女性が男着物を着る写真集) and it gets a two-thumbs up from me. Because the pictures from the album itself have not been shared publicly, I’m only sharing here an image from the Campfire campaign page and the cover, but I strongly recommend following both Sato and Candy on Twitter for fun kimono photos.

First of all, I loved the premise. No surprise. But surprisingly, I actually loved most of the photoshoots. Each model is wearing a custom kimono that really suits them, then they are photographed multiple times in settings around a city, cafe or photoshoot set for maximum mood. Really lovely photos. As a testament to both kimono maker and photographer, this book is excellent.

The final pages include some backers who chose to participate in a photoshoot in genderless kimono. In many ways these are even better, as they are just everyday people who are wearing such incredible clothing and looking so damn good doing it, that it makes one want to run out and hire both Candy and Sato.

The campaign was a raging success, bring in nearly 3x the initial goal, with 132 backers. That indicates to me, that most of the backers threw a lot of money at this project. I know I would sure have participated at a higher level if I was in Japan. ^_^

I don’t often review crowdfunding rewards on Okazu for several reasons. One, if the book is not available for sale, that usually makes it awkward. And, quite often the reward is…okay. It wasn’t why I backed the project. In this case, the photo album is lovely and will definitely find a place on my shelves next to Tokyo Bois! and a few other queer-friendly photo books I have. ^_^

Ratings:

Overall – 9

Really fun to flip through and appreciate fashion and location…and models. ^_^

Via YNN Correspondent Amy M, take a look at this NHK video on kimono artist Candy for some fun looks.