Looking forward to next month when Tokyopop’s English-language edition of Akashi’s Still Sick, Volume 1 hits retail shelves, I wanted to take a moment to jump back into this series.

Last spring, we met Shimizu Makoto, an office worker who has a secret life as a doujinshi-drawing otaku, and Maekawa Akane, a coworker who knows the truth. The setup was a bit worrisome. I was afraid that Maekawa was going to torture Shimizu, but nope…instead the story flipped itself over when Shimizu learns Maekawa’a even larger secret – she was once a popular manga artist! Shimizu wants very much to help Maekawa restart her career but to say that Maekawa is erratic, is a gross understatement.

In Volume 2 of Still Sick, (スティルシック) Maekawa does torture Shimizu, but not the way we expected. Shimizu, in an unguarded moment, admits that she likes Maekawa, who then reacts in the most passive-aggressive ways possible. On the one hand she forces Shimizu to admit she’s always liked women and hid it from everyone, and on the other won’t let her hang out and help, demanding she stay out of touching distance – and in between, throwing herself into Shimizu’s arms. Shimizu is hurt and confused and, above all, really wants to help Maekawa.

On a company onsen vacation, Shimizu turns to a coworker for advice and pours her heart out over ping pong (as one does,) not naming names, of course. He’s super sympathetic and offers some solid advice. As he goes to leave, he notices Maekawa standing in the shadow of the door, having obviously heard all of what was said.

Maekawa tells Shimizu that she wants to talk with her….

…in Volume 3.

What?!? Yes, we’re not going to know what Shimizu wants to say until next volume. Although, honestly, I think we can guess. ^_^ Maekawa is suffering from the same problem Shimizu was – inability to admit the truth-itis.

I don’t much care for the ham-handed way Maekawa is being handled here, her passive-aggressiveness is falling flat because the motivation is obvious and the behavioral swings are so huge without accompanying mood changes, but I really like the way Shimizu was portrayed; less dramatic, but more deeply felt.

The art is pretty tight, and adult characters look like adults, which I always appreciate. Most appreciated is that the onsen scenario is not played for service, but for emotional tension. Phew!

Ratings:

Art – 7
Characters – 8
Story – 8
Yuri – 3, LGBTQ – 4
Service – 0 so far – even in an onsen

Overall – 8

True, Maekawa is being annoying – and worse, some of it is being played for a comedic beat, but Volume 3 should resolve some part of all of that.  In the meantime, I’m bookmarking the series over on MAGxiv, the MAG Garden comic site on Pixiv!

If there was one defining feature of previous volumes of Hisona’s Goodbye Dystopia that I truly loved, it was not learning a damn thing about either of the protagonists.

Yes, we got the vaguest idea that Asami travels to find things and Mizuki was running away from home in Volume 1 and in Volume 2, we learned that the world they inhabited had people in it, and that they both had past loss they weren’t thinking about.

In Goodbye Dystopia, Volume 3 (グッバイ・ディストピア), I was desperately afraid that the story would give too much away. I am pleased to say that we know only a very little bit more.

Asami’s loss is a sister. A sister, old friend Uzuki points out, that MIzuki is taking the place of.

Mizuki lets us – and no one else – learn that she’s not running from home, but from a failed romance with a schoolmate, in which she was the only one who was serious. We had guessed as much for Mizuki and while it was news about Asami, when all of that has been pulled out and aired, we really know very little about either woman other than what we’ve seen.

Nonetheless, having had what of their dirty laundry we’ve seen laid out, both women seem lighter and more able to face what is ahead of them. As the manga draws to an end, they discover an abandoned amusement park at which they abandon the last of their worries, and head on into the unknown, together.

Ratings:

Art – 9 This is my kind of art
Story – 10 There is none. I love it.
Characters – 9
Service – 0
Yuri – 4 We learn what we already had guessed

Overall – 9

I loved this series and would have been glad to follow it for decades through dilapidated buildings and abandoned places. I loved the art, the sketchbook quality of the physical locations, Mizuki’s wind-blown hair and the unpaved tracks of the landscape. I loved that we’ll never know their full names or whole histories. I love all the things we don’t know and just enjoyed the heck out of the journey.

In Volume 1, we met Yuki, a young woman who works at a coffee shop in a bustling Taisho period town, who is very interested in the works of a particular female novelist, Azuma Beniko. When Sensei comes in to her cafe, Yuki finds herself instantly captivated by the cosmopolitan author.

In Volume 2 of Nagori Yuu-sensei’s Pixiv manga Jyoryusakka to Yuki (女流作家とユキ), Yuki learns more about the novelist, and about herself. Yuki is starting to fantasize about Azuma-sensei and recognizes, as she has read many romance novels, that she’s falling in love. She also learns that those same novels were the cause of a lover’s suicide, when two girls killed themselves supposedly motivated by one of Sensei’s books.

We learn that Yuki’s obsession with Azuma-sensei’s work stems from being a lonely child on account of not being physically strong. Her mother had died when she was young and her father is away for work most of the time. And, when he returns, he tells Yuki that he’s setting up a marriage meeting for her. She protests, and he blames the novels she likes. In anger, she runs to Azuma-sensei who brings her back, but both she and Yuki stand firm in the face of her father’s anger. Ultimately, he relents. It moot, because Sensei has admitted to herself that she loves Yuki and invites Yuki to live with her.

In the end, Yuki wakes up, amazed and embarrassed to find herself in the bed of a woman she’s idolized for so many years. But this time, she’s assured, it is not a dream or a fantasy. And we can close this book assuming a happily-ever-after for this successful female author and the coffee-shop girl she loves.

Okay, yes, it’s a ridiculous story. I loved every page of it. I loved the clothing, the backgrounds and with the exception of a chapter in the middle where the style significantly altered (I’d assume because of a hardware/software or materials change) the art.This story was a joy to read and the ending left me with a huge grin.

Ratings:

Art – 7
Story –  8 Still girl meets author and is swept off her feet. Still okay by me.
Character – 8
Service – 2 Nothing particularly salacious. Yuki’s fantasies and Yuki’s reality are as close as we get.
Yuri – 8

Overall – 8

This was a Yuri romance that I looked forward to every chapter of. I slowed myself down reading a few times, just to enjoy it longer. Then I re-read it. ^_^