With the Light - "Hikari to Tomoni"

Impressions from the first few pages.

What would the genre be called? Josei is for young woman, but is there an ouk-san [1] category? Tobe Keiko's "With the Light" initially feels like Lifetime in still life. The artwork is clean. The initial set up is familiar; a cute woman pursues a handsome guy, beats out rivals, and gets her man. He's successful, they live in a spacious apartment, and she has some fellow young mothers in the neighborhood. That's just the summary of the first few pages, but in the afterglow of josei romance, the husband behaves coolly towards our protagonist Azuma Sachiko and sides with his mother.

Part of the Lifetime feeling comes from the introductio, which focuses on her as opposed to meeting the Azumas all at once. The blurp says as much, which focuses on the young mother who raises a child with autism. Then again, having the Japanese husband mixing up with the family would have lost most of the audience.

[1] a way of addressing a married woman

Heptagon: A Life Relived

A quick recommendation of a scanlation. The scanlator group Dragon Voice brought over the first three chapters of Hijiri Chiaki's "Heptagon" [1]. It's about a 24 year old girl named Nana who takes a hit to the head and wakes up in her 14 year old self. The older Nana drifts by in life, writing checks from M&D Bank [2] for a living. By contrast, her middle school self is insecure and immature, but also full of energy.

I've heard this question posed several times: "If you could go back to you teenage years, would you?" Most people answer that they would take back their youth if they could bring their knowledge and wisdom. Though Nana is not a particularly wise character, she takes her baggage with her on this trip through time. Hijiri creates a medley of complex relationships, and I'm looking forward to her answer to the musing on a life relived.

Update:
I read the ending for the second time. The first time was minus a few too many hours sleep and didn't make that strong of an impression on me. It seemed to convenient. It's kind of like Borges-lite. He had written a story about a man who had two pasts. In one, the man was a coward who ran from the battlefield. In the other, he had fought bravely.

Absolving Nana of her past regrets seemed a little overdone. A more nuanced and longer ending would have worked better. 7 chapters would have been perfect to close this Heptagon.

[1] Published by Margaret Comics.
[2] Mommy & Daddy Bank.