In Volume 3, Saki found herself seen in ways that were both complicatedly affirming and deeply confusing. Now that she knows Kanon’s history, her one comment is that barriers are meant to be blown away completely – a line that changes everything for Kanon.

Think about a moment when you believed you could do – something, anything – before someone told you, you could not take flying lessons, or whatever that thing might have been. Kanon, whose whole life was pretty much striving in musical endeavor, had a life change that made her think she could never have that back. She won’t be able to regain what she had, but now she can see that she can create something new.

In The Moon On A Rainy Night, Volume 4, Kanon decides to reclaim that feeling for herself,

To an American audience, the song that Saki ends up choosing for her class may seem simple, cheesy, banal even, but the text here explicitly asks you to consider the meaning behind the song – what it was originally mean to represent and how it can mean even more in this specific context. I ask you to consider who Stevie Wonder is, as well  – a man blind from birth who has shaped global music in innumerable ways, and Paul McCartney, a man from humble beginnings who also changed music on a global scale. So, yes, we may hear “Ebony and Ivory,” and think of it as a bland pop song – but, in this context, it means so much.

“You shouldn’t have to get over any barriers! They should be knocked down to begin with!”  Saki’s words have not stopped resonating with me since I first read this volume in Japanese in 2022. In every way I can, I am committed to removing barriers.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 4, LGBTQ – 6

Overall – 9

This year we have a bounty of charming, empowering and delightful Yuri – we have been seen – and it feels great.