About the newest chapter 54 on mangadex:

So, one of my all-time favorite manga's ended and I am going to miss the monthly shot of soft mourning and holding on bonds of hope and love. What the hell am I going to read after this.

But aside of that, it ended as it has alwas been. Not a bang and also not a whimper, but the splashing beat of life that goes on in daybreak's light. I really love that Makio has still hang-ups and struggles and likely forever will be exhausted by connecting and getting sad about that and that she still doubts her capacity to express love directly and so, subconsciously?, keeps doing it the indirect way she knows it: by writing. The point of the tale is not to make Makio better or to free Asa fully of her grief. It is simply that once there was a girl about to be deserted by life and family, and Makio was there to tether her to the world, to keep her on this earth. That is it. A lonely adult strove to take care of a bereaved child and they both managed to connect despite those issues. So shines a light through all the dust still. I love this manga so much.

Seriously, what am I going to read next?

last edited at Jun 9, 2023 6:45PM

That can only be absolutely awful.

Yeah, I’m not much of a manga > live-action person anyway, but when I think of this series (which I consider to be one of the best ever, insofar as that can be said about an in-progress story), I think of the visual and verbal pacing, the framing, the loose expressive line, the subjective metaphorical scenes, the varied facial expressions—in other words, a lot of comics-specific stuff done spectacularly well in a notably low-key way.

If the live-action version turns out to be good, well, great, but at this point I can only conceive of it being painfully flat as compared to the manga.

Fully cosigned. So much of what makes Ikoku Nikki great is its use of the comic's strengths that ae unfilmable. It can be done if the director takes the same care to instill the same mood via visual images without it becoming overwrought or tedious, but that takes care AND skill.

Not going to watch this unless I hear from other people it is great. The comic is there already, after all.

Another chapter! (Though on mangadex)

Once again a slow chapter that explores a hidden feeling and then slamming me with full recontextualizing force.

So much anguish: struggle to express stuff, struggling with self-esteem, worries about emotional distance with Makio and also trying to be still close to, however doubtful she is.

New chapter!

I didn't get the last bubble entirely, but I loved that we got some insight in what Makio's life before was and how she came to writing. And more of the dynamic in her family.

Another good chapter.

I really liked the moment Asa said she would understand it later, but then the chapter questions that moment. Is it maturity to know when she is still not ripe enough, or is it a passive underestimation of her own capabilities? Is it insecurity brought on by adolescence undermining her?

That feeling of never going anywhere...it is painfully relatable.

Also loved the moment Makio gave another piece of her motivation of to be writer.

last edited at Mar 9, 2022 2:24PM

New chapter on mangadex!

Haha, I love how this shows the writing process. I got chills when the character "yes, you can't go anywhere because you are not human" showed up. I immediately wanted to know more about Ruby, heh. Also, this is the character she and Kasamachi were talking about in another chapter. And now it is explicit she uses her writing to process some stuff she wrestles

I don't know why she will give up the music, but she might have very pressing reasons for doing so

I think it's just med school being so tough and time-consuming (or possibly it'd be seen as inappropriate in Japan? I mean, it IS Japan ... but probably just time). Sucks indeed, but on the plus, no reasons she can't take it up alter again, I guess.

I think you are confusing Chiyo (who has black har and is planning to to med school with Mimori, the blonde one who repeatedly thinks of herself as a "someone who doesn't do such things")

Though now that I type it out, that might be the reason why she stops with music :(

That is a good point. I never thought of that, but they do that consistently and in the case of Makio explicitly.

On the newest chapter: That second-to-last page is some of my favorite manga pages. It makes me so soft and also sad. I don't know why she will give up the music, but she might have very pressing reasons for doing so, and..it just sucks

Love how this manga handles mundane things like that commute for the first few pages of this chapter.

I'm honestly not sure I got all that chapter had to say but it's great stuff as usual either way, ha.

Yeah, sometimes new chapters are difficult to get because it kind of hasn't said everything what the story wanted to say with them. It constantly uses images of earlier chapters and interweaves them with the newer ones to create motifs to support a theme. For example how "I don't want them to dislike me" and "actions don't always bear fruit in return" appear here.

But I think this one is mostly about how to receive appreciation from society and how both Kasamachi and Makio struggle with it, while Asa has no trouble with it as shown with her being invited and her lyrics being chosen. It makes for healthier connections in her life, while the trouble with it weighs on Kasamachi and Makio's lives.

Waiting for the next update to come out. I am curious to whether it will continue to follow the dad or go out another direction.

Oh yeah, kudos to the translation team. They did so well enough that I realized Asa was starting to write the lyrics in her head because of how poetic it was sounding.

(I also love bats, so nice of the manga to make them sound cool, which they are!)

In this chapter there are two emotional high points. One in which a character bares his complex feelings about his father and one in which another character gives a wolf howl.

I love this manga.

It is so good at tieing it all together in the end! How the theme of echo reverberates from the start and culminates in Asa recognizing her own feelings about her dad in Kasamachi's. How the theme of earthquake, which started two chapters ago, mixes with that of the echo in order to form an answer to how Asa can find peace (for now, I think. Depends on whether next chapter continues her search for info on her dad or not) with the uncertainty about her dad.

And then that profound moment of 'wolvish' Makio howling. It touched me.

last edited at Aug 13, 2021 12:16AM