Do you remember Morinaga Milk’s series Girl Friends? It was an incredibly popular and influential Yuri manga in the early 2010s, so more than a decade ago. The story followed an introverted girl, Mari, who becomes friendly with an extroverted girl, Akiko. Akiko is Mari’s first real girl friend. And, then, they start to fall in love with one another.  I bring this up because a number of Yuri series begin in a similar emotional space – someone has not previously had a close friend and then their feelings begin to change. Saki and Kanon have both had a close friend before. They both know how friendship feels. They both know how it feels to feel betrayed, or lost when that friendship cracks.

In Amayo no Tsuki, Volume 6 (雨夜の月) a whole lot of things happen that remind us that this story is absolutely not handwaving *anything.* This is a remarkably profound story that is not at all taking shortcuts, even when we might expect it to.

First, in the wake of telling Kanon how she feels,  Saki has decided that it’s time to speak to Akira, the hair stylist whose “friend’s” story of first love with another girl seemed awfully personal. It’s an important conversation for Saki, because she starts to accept her feelings for Kanon. She has no clue where she is going with them yet, but she she’s starting to understand that this is who she is. Secondly, Kanon is also wondering what to do with her emotions. She’s got no name for this maelstrom she’s feeling ask Saki asks her a favor under the bright lights of a fireworks display.

Whether or not they become a couple is entirely irrelevant to me. Watching them work through complicated feelings about other people and with other people to talk to, is very much the crux of the matter. But, this volume isn’t leaning back on just this one piece of the story, either. Saki meets up with Ayano and once again offers comfort and a way to move forward for the other girl and Tomita comes back to school, openly admitting her disability, and apologizing to her ignored friends in a touching scene.

Yeas ago, I was reading a comic that cleared the low bar of the Bechdel-Wallace Test but inspired me to create the Friedman Addendum to the Bechdel-Wallace Test, which includes these three criteria:

Does female character have agency?
Does she have society?
Does she have personality?

In Amayo no Tsuki, Saki has society. Her friendship has helped Kanon to build the same for herself… and that is what makes this volume so amazing. If these two fall in love, it won’t be because they are sheltered in a world of two, blocked from the rest of society. It will be because they want to face that world together.  In the meantime, Kanon is not only finding her own ways to make friends and be part of her class’ activities, she’s also finding her own individual voice as a writer.

The final story follow Kanon’s sister Rinne and how she learns to be braver about openly displaying empathy for others with help from her sister’s experience.

Ratings:

Art – 9
Story – 10
Characters – 10
Service –  Saki and Kanon in yukata is also a form of service ^_^
Yuri – 5

Overall – 10

This was a fabulous volume of a series that is already carved out a permanent place in my heart.  I recently did an interview with a media platform in which I was asked where I saw the future of Yuri. The answer is – this. This intersectionality with disability, gender, race, mental health – these crossroads where we explore with it is to be a human with a body and mind that is not always under our control or are othered by people who are not us. This is where I see Yuri going right now and I really like it.

This series is available in English, as The Moon On A Rainy Night from Kodansha,  Volumes 1-3 are out and I have, of course, reviewed them here on Okazu. ^_^

I’ve been filled with joy reading this series since my first glimpse at it almost two years ago. In my review of Volume 3 of Amayo no Tsuki, (雨夜の月) I said, “we get the last piece that would make this series perfect, IMHO. Whatever happens now, I am in the front row, rooting for everyone.”

Representation is a complex matter. It’s incredibly powerful just to see or read about someone who is like ourselves. In this way, this series has been fantastic, in providing excellent representation of disability and the way accommodation can function when people understand what it is intended to do. But in both narrative and real life the best representation is to actually meet someone like yourself and understand how their lives play out. In The Moon on a Rainy Night, Volume 3, Saki meets two critically important people.

First, she randomly meets a hair stylist in training who, quite disconcertingly, “sees” Saki, in a way that she is not yet ready to see herself. Akira’s gaydar absolutely pins Saki, and the younger woman is on the receiving end of a cautionary tale about first loves which makes her more self-conscious about the skinship between Kanon and herself. This becomes a bit of a crisis, as Kanon’s sister asks Saki to keep Kanon company one night. Kanon sleeps over and Saki is ecstatic and panicking all night long.

And then, Saki meets Kanon’s former friend, Ayano, who warns her about the price one pays as a caretaker. We can see right away that Ayano’s situation was different, and tragic on several levels –  but the warning Saki receives is, once again, reasonable. In both cases, she is seen and understood, and yet, not understood. Representation is complicated. Saki is going to have to figure this one out for herself…but not on her own, one hopes. Kuzushiro is pulling out all the stops here.

While translation, lettering and editing are all fantastic, technically, this book is a bit problematic. On the Okazu Discord, we recently had a discussion about the indifferent quality of recent print books from Yen and Kodansha. This book arrived with the cover cut too short for the pages. I might have assumed that was a fluke, but a second copy – from a different company – was the same. My last few volume of books from Yen have likewise been not-great quality. She Loves To Cook, She Loves To Eat had pages cut unevenly, and both publishers have had low-ink faded pages in recent volumes. As I type this, I notice the spine is not lined up correctly in one of the two copies I have. These are production issues that need to be addressed. I hope they’ll both improve their QA a bit this year.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 9
Characters – 9
Service – Really not
Yuri – 4, LGBTQ – 6

Overall – 9

Volume 3 put this series on my top ten lists for last year (and Volume 4 and Volume 5!) It’s a tremendously good series, with a LOT to say about life. If you’re not reading it yet, I really think you should.

Volume 6 of Amayo no Tsuki is out in Japanese and Volume 4 of The Moon on A Rainy Night, will be headed our way in April.