Otherside Picnic, Volume 8 was a mind-blowing, fabulous “wow.”

In this horror/scifi Yuri series by Iori Miyazawa, there have been two key mysteries; The true nature of the UBL, aka, the Otherside….and Sorawo. Because Sorawo is our narrator and protagonist the story has allowed her the time and space to be unaware that she even is a mystery, or to have any real insight to the mystery that is her.

Volume 8 begins with the mystery of Sorawo. She is, as they say in the biz, an unreliable narrator. Or…is she? We – and Toriko – have assumed as much because surely a person with her past cannot have made it to adulthood without some unaddressed trauma.  One of the deep leitmotifs of this series is communication – or the lack of it. Sorawo doesn’t understand people and isn’t great at understanding herself. This has and will come back again and again in the series. She is as much a mystery to herself as she is to anyone else. And having confronted the inescapable fact that she is – probably for the first time in her life – loved unconditionally – Sorawo wanders around her own small, but growing, group of confidants order to find the answer in herself…as she has always done for answers about the Otherside. This allows the narrative to revisit some old characters, meet some new ones, to clear up old puzzles and create new ones.

 We meet one of Sorawo’s classmates – a representative of normality – and Sorawo finds some assistance in that quarter. Reality has never been Sorawo’s ally before and it opens up new possibilities.  She speaks to Natsume and they finally communicate past the huge gap in understanding between them. This is an amusing scene, but unlike my esteemed colleague Sean Gaffney who laughed at Natsume’s description of Sorawo as a “raging lesbian,” I found it far more amusing that Natsume’s response to Sorawo’s cluelessness (denial?) about Toriko was to flatly respond, “That pisses me off.” I mean… I feel ya Natsume. ^_^ Of course Sorawo darkens Kozakura’s doorstep once again and again, Kozakura spoke like the adult she is supposed to be. It feels like her character, having been abandoned a few volumes ago, is being reformed as the grown-up in the room. I like it.

Sorawo meets and has an experience with a new character, Tsuji, a woman who was clearly written for me, personally. ^_^ I look forward to whatever develops with this fascinating new character.

All of this peripatetic musing must come to an end and in this series, what precipitates that end is..terror. Sorawo at last comes face to that which she fears most – and finds the will to confront it. It’s time to talk to Toriko.

What we get, then, is one of the most extraordinary explorations of physical, emotional and psychic boundaries that I have ever read. Toriko and Sorawo do not find a satisfying physical relationship on our plane. It’s only when they accept that they are now of the Otherside and the Otherside is of them that they find one another.  This was an outstanding scene that was consistent with the characters as we know them, the series’ premise as it has been given to us, and the deeper themes of communication and the mystery of both the Otherside and Sorawo.

The arc that has been building since Volume 5 has come to an incredible climax (and yeah, put every possible spin on that word) but the journey is not over. What will this pair find in the Otherside or themselves next time? I have no idea, but I am absolutely tuning in and finding out, since the addition of a new character leads one to assume a next volume.  ^_^

Ratings:

Story – 10
Character – 10
Service – Amazingly, not very much. Let’s give it a 3. It’s less “service” and more “grown-up.”
Yuri – 10

Overall – 10

Another outstanding volume, building on the last outstanding volume. Miyazawa-sensei is on top of his form right now and I am perfectly willing to wait a little while to get volumes of this high quality writing.