We welcome a new guest reviewer, Journaliste/Chroniqueur Lauren Lignon, who will be looking at the French translation of Yuri manga Yoru to Umi by Goumoto. I’m very happy to have Laurent here to talk about this series…and what a great review this is. Laurent, the floor is yours…

This review is based on the French translation of the Plongée dans la nuit, Volume 1.

“In a flash… I went under”

Tsukiko Yano is a half-Japanese/half-European transfer student. A withdrawn and solitary girl, she spends her time between home and classroom, rebuking potential boyfriends and never trying to get along with the other schoolgirls. Until the day she sees by chance a fellow student, the extrovert Utsumi Aka, swimming in the pool. Struck by the grace of Utsumi’s movements in the water, Tsukiko will try to get closer to her… Not knowing that herself has also been noticed by Utsumi, who is fascinated by Tsukiko’s cold and distant attitude.

Thus starts the first volume of Yoru To Umi (夜と海) (The Night and The Sea, translated as the delightfully poetic title “Dive Into The Night” in French), a very interesting take on the classic love story between schoolgirls. Each of the five chapters is told from a different point of view : Tsukiko, Utsumi, the Theatre Club (most notably would-be actress Maihara), then once again Tsukiko and Utsumi. Through each point of view, we see how each character sees her surroundings and what their relationships with others mean to them.

Tsukiko, when retreating inside her thoughts, sees the world as the bottom of the ocean, calm and without sound, full of fishes and sea creatures. A vision linked to her memories of a trip to a seaquarium she undertook with her father as a child. This is what attracts her to Utsumi, as she see the swimming girl as a graceful sea creature whose form and movements in the water fascinates her to the point of wanting to keep looking at her swimming all day long.

Until meeting Tsukiko, Utsumi’s only pleasure was to spend hours swimming and diving in the school pool, feeling only at home in the water. Utsumi sees Tsukiko as a cold and otherworldly creature of the Night, a beautiful vampire from a movie she saw as a child, an inaccessible nightflower, out of her reach, but whose nocturnal beauty enthralls her. Both girls, very different in mindsets, manage to reach a sort of friendship that seems to bloom into something else… Except that each one of them struggles in her own way to understand the other one and express her feelings.

This is a slow story, going at a rather dreamy pace. The talent of Goumoto-sensei resides in the way she manages to picture some rather casual actions as having a deep impact on the the characters. This is not a story of blushing and cherry trees, but of the slow discovery of what brings two different people together. You can find in it as much a strong romantic friendship (in the Class S style) as blooming love, and it is up to you, the reader, to fill the blanks. However, this is not without some humour, most notably when Tsukiko imagines Utsumi as a suffocating out-of-water fish when the swimming pool is closed for the holidays.

But it is in the landscapes and the surroundings that Goumoto-sensei’s drawing talent shines the most. Every time Tsukiko retreats into herself, or looks at Utsumi, we see fishes and waves. And her mood impacts the way she envisions her environment (whales skeletons swimming near her when she feels down, an nocturnal abyss when she sleeps and dreams, a crashing wave materializing Utsumi’s difficult speech to her at the end of the volume, and so on). When Utsumi looks at Tsukiko, she sees castles, stars, the night and even a few bats. It is a very poetic way to represent the emotions and feelings that animate each of the two heroines, and it is beautifully translated into the drawings.

As the volume ends, Utsumi, although being quite a loquacious girl, gets to ask Tsukiko something that she’s never been able to say to anyone else before, leaving Tsukiko speechless, and the story to be continued in the next volume. (Volume 2 is available in Japanese or French.)

Ratings:

ART – 9 : this is brilliant from start to finish, and one can get lost in the amount of details on some pages

STORY – 8 : slow pacing, dream-like sequences, a few gags but still the story moves on correctly. The Sundays or The Cocteau Twins were my soundtrack for this reading session.

CHARACTERS – 7 : Outside of Tsukiko and Utsumi, the rest of the cast is rather non-existent for now.

SERVICE – 1 : a single pantie shot that could have been avoided, despite being logical in the context. Then there is Utsumi always swimming in a one piece swimsuit, but nothing is made to sexualize her.

YURI – 6 : this is so far a well done Class S story. The note reflect the fact that, to some, this may still not be Yuri enough.

OVERALL – 8

It is an unusual Yuri : although not said clearly, there are hints that at least one of the main character can be defined as asexual/aromantic, a rare representation within the genre. The story fills you with a soothing feeling, and the main protagonists are lovable enough to make you want to see more from them.

Erica here: Thank you Laurent for such an evocative review! I hope we can ask you to return for Volume 2.