Every once in a while in any media, something comes along that is so radical, so once-in-a-lifetime, so game changing that even if the buzz around it is hyperbolic, it cannot be enough. (Except for television, which talks about every show as if it is a masterpiece, no matter how banal.) When it comes to queer manga, we’ve had a relative glut the past few years with manga like My Brother’s Husband, My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness and now this extraordinary story.
In Volume 1, we met Tasuku, a young man being bullied for his sexuality, something he wasn’t sure about at all. At the Drop-In Center, he meets a group of LGBTQ individuals, who change his life, Haruko and her wife Saki, Chaico, an elderly gay man, Nanami-kun older than Tasuku, but young and attractive to him, and Misora, a young trans girl.
In Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare, Volume 2, Tasuku tries to understand Misora a little better. She’s struggling with mutually exclusive gender identity and puberty. She’s so alone that Tasuku’s attempts to get closer are seen as insults. And Tasuku only has so much time and attention for the youngest member of the Drop-In Center, as he’s finally starting to admit to himself what the people around him have known…that he is gay. He is learning to accept that he has a crush on a classmate, to figure out what he’s going to do with the house he’s been given to rehabilitate and, in the few empty spaces, he’s trying to be there for Misora, who isn’t making it easy. Misora’s struggles are equal or greater to Tasuku’s, but he only has so much of himself to spread around. A friendly date to a local festival ends in disaster.
Haruko takes several opportunities to make important points about LGBTQ people and life, and is, as she has been from the beginning, the strong backbone of this circle.
Beyond the drama that is stirring at the Center, and unbeknownst to Tasuku, his crush may have learned his secret. Volume 3 will be explosive.
The art is excellent, at times breathtaking. The representation of queer people living their lives, dealing with both society and individuals who seek to harm them, or make them invisible, and the internal struggle with acceptance and understanding that every individual must work through, is handled in very real, very nuanced strokes.
Creator Yuhki Kamatani and the series deserve all the praise they received. I also want to take a moment to note the folks who have worked on the English adaptation: translator Jocylene Allen; adapter Ysabet MacFarlane, both of whom I consider masters at their craft; Kaitlin Wiley, who did lettering and retouch – one of the most difficult jobs in manga; KC Fabellon whose cover design is true to the original and legible and striking; original designer Hiroshi Nigami, a credit I am very pleased to see here; proofreaders Kurestin Armada and Danielle King, editor Jenn Grunigen, and Production Manager Lissa Patillo the unsung heroes of great works. Amazing job, every one of you. Please note that Seven Seas credits every single person who brought this amazing manga to you. Not every manga company does and I want to say that this is definitely one of two things that has set Seven Seas apart from every other company since the beginning. I’m also going to shout out to Lianne Sentar who is Marketing Manager for Seven Seas, and Jason and Adam at the top who make the choices. This was a really good one.
I hope to see this book break records, like Nagata-sensei’s work has, because if there is a manga series that I consider more important to LGBTQ folks than Lesbian Experience….it’s this one.
Our Dreams at Dusk: Shimanami Tasogare is a masterpiece of LGBTQ life in Japan and a masterwork of a manga.
Ratings:
Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters- 8
LGBTQ – 10
Service – 0
Overall – 9
It has been just shy of a year since I reviewed the Japanese edition of this book. Even knowing what will happen in Volume 3 (slated for a September release, whoo!) and Volume 4 (which hits shelves in December!), I cannot wait to read them all over again!
When I reviewed the Japanese edition, so many of you said you couldn’t wait for it in English. Well…here it is! This series will make a great holiday gift for your young queer friends and relatives. ^_^
Shimanami Tasogare is such a wonderful series. Seven Seas and all the wonderful people that worked to adapt the manga are excellent for giving the English reading market this manga and for their continued hard work.
I don’t want to argue about interpretations, but was Misora a trans girl? As far as I remember, their identity was intentionally left ambiguous in order to depict the experience of qeer people who are either still researching their identity or don’t fit to any “labels”.
You’re not wrong from Misora’s perspective, since she is clearly unsure and Tasuku is too immature to help her. I admit to having the benefit of both real-world experience and future knowledge, as I’ve read the series. ^_^
You mean that you define they “final” identity as female, theorizing that ultimately Misora will come out as a trance girl? Well, personally, I try to avoid this, since literally any conversation about Misora’s identity ended with a warning against trying to use any label without their personal opinion.
I mean, that you should read the rest of the story.
I understand what you want to say, but as far as I can tell, Volume 4 doesn’t provide any information about changes in their identities. So, in my opinion, simplifying Misora’s experience to certain lables simply destroys the this message. Especially in the context of the Anonymous message later in the story.
What does “information” even mean in this context? When Misora comes back into the story, we will learn what Tasuku learns about her. That’s how life works.
You spend so much time looking for clear answers to questions that have none. Can you absolutely know who and what you will be in your future? Our understanding changes as our lives and experience change and as terminology changes.
I will no longer be responding to questions that ask insistently for “what does this mean?” I am a reviewer – there is no precision here, only my interpretation. If that is not sufficient, I cannot help you.
I’m not looking for a direct answer, on the contrary I want to emphasize that the author intentionally avoids a direct answer to the question “what kind of identity does Misora have, emphasizing several times that personal experiences and feelings of a person are more important than the attempts of other people to “categorize” them somehow based on their own impressions.
At least that is how I see this subplot. If you took this as a toxic imposition of my opinion, then please forgive me, this was not my intention. I had a “some” experience of gender uncomfortability in my teenage and young adult years, so the psychological aspect of such stories is a sensitive topic for me.