One of our best supporters and dearest friends here at Okazu, Bruce, died about 5 years ago. I have been slowly working my way through all his anime and manga. Much of it has been given to a good home, some of it has been part of Lucky Boxes. Recently, I can to the last box of English-language manga in his collection…and I found something I had never heard of!

line, by Yua Kotegawa is an English-language edition put out in 2006 by ADV Manga, so this is way past just “out of print.” It’s not really Yuri in any sense, either. But after reading it, I can totally understand why Bruce had it in his collection. If he were alive, I would ask him to review it. So he’ll have to guest review from the spirit world today.

Chiko is a popular, cute girl at school. She doesn’t concern herself with the kind of class bullying that exists around her, she’s just in her own world, doing her own thing.

The book opens up as she finds someone’s dropped cell phone. She’s going to bring it to lost and found when it rings…and the person on the other end commands her to rush to a location to save the life of a student about to commit suicide. The voice explains how horrible life is when one is ostracized or bullied. Chiko arrives too late, but is seen yelling into the phone by a classmate, Bando. Bando is a quiet otaku type, but quickly becomes Chiko’s partner as they seek to find and save people about to kill themselves. The phone rings and they go running. They don’t always make it, but sometimes they do. And those people become part of the team. The suicides ramp up in frequency, until the anonymous caller has Chiko, Bando and everyone they saved, running around town saving as many people as possible. Eventually the caller kills himself and the team all lay, exhausted on a roof.

The next day, Chiko invites one of the bullied kids in her class out with her and Bando and the rest out to do something that’s no biggie…because, as she says, everyone going has got very sore muscles.

So, yeah, this is hardly a worldshaking book, but it hits pretty solidly in showing how important it is for people to not just passively accept bullying and loss. Chiko and Bando aren’t a couple, there’s never any tension between them of that kind, but the circumstance draws them together and, by extension, draws people to them. I can see all sorts of parallels to that in my life. Communities of interest are the invites out, the group of people with something in common to talk about.

ADV missed a chance to post a suicide hotline phone number, but I won’t. If you think you can’t do this any more, please call someone. In the USA, just remember 988. Please call. Someone is there to listen.

No ratings today.