Ten years ago, I stated to review a series called Kanojo to Camera to Kanojo no Kisetsu, (彼女とカメラと彼女の季節). It was a complex love triangle that spent 5 full volumes at increasing levels of intensity, and yet…

And now, we have She, Her Camera, and Her Seasons, Volume 1 by Tsukiko, out from Kodansha. It’s going to be a very interesting ride to see how this story holds up after a decade.

Akari is a girl who feels that she has no particular value in her life. Her family is poor, her house shabby, her mother work nights as a hostess and she works at a convenience store. She has no hobbies or interests, and the chatter of the girls around her does not interest her much, although she’s able to fake interest. When a classmate takes a candid photo of her with an old camera, Akari’s life will change.

She becomes closer to Yuki, a classmate who has a passion of photography, and Rintarou, a guy on the school baseball team. Their lives become entwined and intimate almost immediately, in ways that alienate Akari from her previous superficial friendships. Right from the beginning there is a lot of tension in this triangle. Akari is falling for Yuki, who seems to have a thing for Rin, who is interested in Akari. This triangle will grow tighter and more taught over the next volumes in a way that I found very hard to look away from. ^_^

Translator Nate Derr did a great job of showing us Akari’s life cracking and reforming in a way that she would not be able to predict. Character voices come through well: Akari’s startled objections, Rin’s doofy charm and Yuki’s coolness and sudden passionate discussion of cameras. Lettering is the standard English near the Japanese – I am *always* going to wish that companies gave letterer Salud Campos Blasco time and money to do retouch. In a story like this where Tsukiko’s art provides the whitespace needed and in a story where composition is a very real matter of both text and visuals, it would have been nice.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 8
Characters – 8
Yuri – 6
Service – 3

Overall – 8

At the moment, this release is digital only through Kindle & Comixology and Bookwalker. It’s a good choice for this tense and compelling tale.

Thanks very much to Kodansha for a review copy for this volume!