Reading Report: 11 December 2022
This was a fun week of diverse reading. I did a mixture of catching up with things and trying out new things. Mild spoilers for 光が死んだ夏
光が死んだ夏 Vol 2 This continues to be an extremely great series. The relationship between ヒカル and よしき is really sweet but also really tense. I think the most noteworthy moment for me was during a 夏祭り when they're discussing かき氷 and Yoshiki informs Hikaru that the colours aren't different flavours, it's just a psychological thing that makes people perceive X colour = X flavour. Hikaru asks Yoshiki if he looks just like 光, then, does that mean Yoshiki's perception of him is the same. (It is an analogy)
税金で買った本 Vol 1 A really cute manga. So much of it feels like Just Read(tm) propaganda, aha. It's a subculture-type manga set in a library so it covers not only day to day dealings within Japanese public libraries but also some fun edge cases and the stories of visitors.
パーフェクトワールド Vol 1 A romance about a girl who, by chance, starts working with her 幼馴染. The caveat is that in the time since she last saw him he was in an accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. The story follows their romance but also her learning more about the struggles (and unique joys) of people who are wheel-chair bound. There's a chapter near the end where 鮎川 (あゆかわ), the male lead, is asked to help a younger guy accept his disability and the chapter basically ends with him saying "yeah I never accepted this, but the best I can do is keep moving forward" and that sort of hits hard for me.
タコピーの原罪 Vol 1 and 2 Yappari it's very good. The themes are very heavy (suicidal ideations abound) but the juxtaposition of this naïve, cutesy, octopus-like alien against a bleak rural Japan really works. The entire story is contained within two volumes as well so, like ルックバック, it wraps up really satisfyingly. I don't want to spoil anything but it was extremely good and the ending had me in tears.
ディノサン: Vol 1 A subgenre-type manga set in a Zoo for Dinosaurs. Each chapter (so far) has focused on the treatment and unique requirements of different dinosaurs from a zookeeper perspective. There's also some focus on the challenge of running and maintaining a zoo, especially one that has become slightly unpopular since an incident where a Dino killed a person 15 years prior. A lot of the zoo design is just like Jurassic Park but I suppose that's possibly because the movie was based on zoos in the first place. I love the dino facts but god help me I'll never be able to remember long katakana names for dinosaurs.