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