Last month, I reported on a fascinating series called Shimanami Tasogare. In Volume 1, we met Tasuku, a young man who hadn’t, as of yet, come to terms with his homosexuality. When he meets a bunch of older gay folks working on a cat shelter, he finds a cause to volunteer his time for, and a place to open his heart.
In Shimanami Tasogare, Volume 2, (しまなみ誰そ彼) Tasuku gets to see what self-loathing looks like from the outside. One of the people who visits the consulting room is a young kid still in elementary school. Misora visits to change into female clothes and life. But Misora never seems particularly happy and is clearly struggling with what puberty is doing to her. And, she has an ugly tendency to lash out whenever she feels that Tasuku gets too close.
Tasuku is starting think about his own feelings more honestly, and has now realized that he has a crush on an attractive classmate, Kiku-kun. Misora is not at all kind about the bits of information Tasuku shares. And every time Tasuku feels as if he’s gotten a little closer to Misora, she attacks him with a vitriol with which – we can see – she means to scar herself. The volume ends on a particularly harsh note, with Misora attacking Tasuku in public in front of the guy he likes at a festival.
Tasuku retreats to to the unfinished shelter, to lay the shards of his emotions next to the broken beams of the building. The strong visual imaging this series gives to Tasuku’s emotions are just stellar.
Meanwhile, we are led to believe that Tasuku’s secret is out to a classmate we don’t know whether we can trust or not.
It’s an uncomfortable ending to an uncomfortable volume filled with the damage self-loathing does to one’s self and others, without a moral of the story to pretty it up. I’m compelled to read it nonetheless and am very interested to see where it leads.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters- 8
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 0
Overall – 9
The mysterious Dareka-san functions as a kind of guardian angel but, as a result, I really don’t want to know anything about her. I feel as if we’re going to learn it anyway. ^_^
The series has been included in the Wednesday release schedule for the mobile app “Manga-One” since Sept. 20. As of yesterday three chapters available. Ranking 10 on the site at the moment. (Just ahead of After Hours).
Curious if an “overseas” publisher can accommodate Rachel Matt Thorn’s interest in translating the manga into English…
Excellent news. Rachel has enough connections that she might be able to make that happen.
Wednesday, release day. Oct. 4 edition. At the moment, it looks like “Shimanani Tasogare” made the transition to this platform really well. In the category aimed at adult readers Kamatani-sensei’s story jumped right to the top of the hill. Earlier this morning ranking number one, according to the chart on the Manga-one website, and number four in that same category on the app itself. Subject to rapid change in that very fluid situation, due to real time voting there and the near constant release of chapters from a diverse range of series. Would be great if this manga could sustain that level of support with each chapter re-released -after its own relocation to a new neighbourhood, so to speak. Ultimately to facilitate continuation to completion. Hopefully not entirely reliant on that new environment.
The Manga-one mobile app and its voting system are most likely not accessible to the majority of people coming to Okazu and the Manga-one website doesn’t give access to the manga itself from a PC, as far as I know.
The next tankōbon, Volume 3 is scheduled to come out on November 15, 2017.
Would be great if Rachel can make it happen. I heard that she is interested in the series and working on a translation in the “Wandering Son” retrospective podcast on AnimeFeminst, btw, forgot to mention that in my previous comment.
Excellent news.
The link for the AF podcast in which Rachel made her remarks – “1:02:00 Shimanami Twilight and trans politics in Japan”. … and a link for a 2012 Twitter post in which Kamatani-sensei self-idenifies.
https://www.animefeminist.com/podcast-chatty-af-21-wandering-son-retrospective/
https://twitter.com/yuhkikamatani/status/199640030942208000