SQ: Begin With Your Name by Tanjiu is an absolutely delightful webcomic that runs on Chinese social platform Weibo. I’d heard about it some some time ago but, to be honest, I can barely keep up with printed Yuri these days so, aside from a very few webcomics, I just can’t find the time to add new ones into my rotation too often. I let webcomics build up and read them in chunks every few months (…or years…or when I remember .) I wanted to read SQ and when Comic Walker picked it up I was delighted to get a chance to read some of it. Even better, Kadokawa has collected all of Volume 1 up into a Japanese release, SQ Kimi no Namae kara Hajimaru (SQ 君の名前から始まる). You can also get this release digitally on Global Bookwalker.
SQ follows Sun Jing, her best friend Qi Fang, and the girl Sun Jing falls for, Qiu Tong, in one of the most wholly relatable, dorakriffically wonderful school life dramas I’ve read in a while.
Sun Jing is awkward in a normal kid kind of way, She and Qi Fang frequently play pranks on one another, he busts her, she busts him; they are cheerfully obnoxious to one another in the way that good friends are. Qiu Tong, who goes to another school, is popular and cute and Sun Jing falls, hard. And then, they just start becoming friends and hanging and Sun Jin makes a fool of herself and sometimes pulls it together long enough to be cool. But when she asks Qiu Tong for her phone number and gets it and celebrates with loud “Yahoo!” my heart just swelled, much like the clerk at the combini in a later chapter watching the two of them being just…cute…together.
Sun Jing and Qiu Tong aren’t the only people in this book, they aren’t even the only couple. They are surrounded by classmates and teammates and schoolmates, all of whom are exactly as I remember – jokingly beating on each other emotionally and physically because that’s how young humans are in packs. But in the background there is a very cute little gay love story, as well. One of the guys in school has a crush on his sempai. He’s a big guy, but sempai is HUGE. We see his massive arm, protectively over his kouhai’s shoulder. Again, just heartwarming as heck. The book ends with sempai taking on a couple of bullies from another school. What will happen has to wait for Volume 2. (Yes, I know it has already been online, I’ve read ahead -its just so cute!- I’m reviewing the collected volume. ^_^)
I also know there’s some controversy about a second volume of this comic, as the Chinese government has apparently cracked down on it for having a same-sex kiss in later chapters. I doubt that will affect a Japanese, volume 2 so I’ll hope to see one. In any case, that chapter is still up on Weibo, and Tanjiu is still posting comics on his Twitter account so there’s been no shutdown.
I genuinely hope to see this title make it over here. It’s really delightful and, as the comics often pass by with very little dialogue many are completely silent, it doesn’t matter what language it’s in. For instance, here is the April 12th comic, which is completely pantomime. The art is simple, the expressions and body language are doing the heavy lifting. We all can relate to Sun Jing’s feelings.
Ratings:
Art – 7
Story – 8 straightforward and simple, but solid
Characters – 10
Service – None. Not a salacious thing in the entire book
Yuri – 9
Overall – 9
It’s just really fun to read. ^_^
Interestingly, this was one of two things from China that I’m reading in Japanese. The other one is a mystery novel which I am reading very, very slowly. I expect to be able to review it in autumn. It’s good, I just can’t read more than a page or two at a time. ^_^;
Loads of Yuri news this week!
