Oh hey, Fukaumi Kon's back! I love the peculiar way they use repetitions, echoes and shifts in perspective and memory to create these quiet, pensive tales that unravel years down panels, weaving recollections to realizations, mementoes to melodies, vignettes to visions all shifting as they're formed, a river of creases that whisper secrets in turning pages.
Here, too, there's a wonderful marshalling of space and setting, a helical progression that enacts time and time again that same pattern of closeness and distance, the constriction of bodies in a crowded train giving way to intimate havens that swell to wrap our girls in amicable bubbles, feeding back into the press of hearts that stand pressed in a common beat, blooming then into a vista of the sea as their voices soar to set tomorrow's date. And then we move back to memories clenched in Takamine's mind, panels of pain bordered in shadow, melting again with Sakura's springtime to burst forth into sweeping passions and singing loves, giving Takamine the courage to close the distance and make a commitment, comfortable at last with leaving her detachment behind to exist in a well-felt moment, and accordingly more content then to step back and appreciate a world no longer empty and numb, but positively glowing with promise and light, knowing it shall be every bit as resplendent tomorrow, knowing the girl who set her alight will be waiting. The last funnelling places us in Sakura's mind, reeling and breathless at an affection returned, in the dizzying knowledge that her little pocket of the train will be that much more crowded tomorrow, and all her words will be graced by eager ears, a lonely book read at last, the letters on her pages sent and received.
In every repetition of the pattern, closeness and distance take on new meanings, contextualized anew by Takamine and Sakura's experiences with each other, their memories and expectations, and also made more meaningful for us as we grow to know them better. And this itself ties into Sakura's gushing about the brilliance of books with subtle foreshadowing that take on new meanings, new secret signals with each read, and sequels to them that hint at shared universes and larger patterns without ever spelling them out, because magic shines best in ambiguity. Every aspect of the tale perfectly coheres, every element deployed in perfect concert, creating constellations of emotion that fascinate effortlessly, a naturalism polished so well as to become a dense, organic cosmos of its own- I adore the girl who seems to have a quiet eye of her own on Takamine, surrounded by knowing friends (one of whom seems quite similar to Haru of Haru to Midori fame, making Sakura's subtly-shared-universe comment even neater). All in all, a brilliant oneshot from a master of the craft. I hope we can see more of Fukaumi's work in the future.
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