Loved this. Really good, moody art, great use of blacks and hatching. Love the story.
The dynamic between Saki and Mai is so interesting. Saki finds Mai on her birthday, buckling under the weight of an empty life where she has never chosen herself. Saki immediately sees a kindred spirit and decides that they'll die together. Saki is desperately lonely, and misery loves company. Plus she's scared of going alone. Meanwhile Mai seems stunned by this surreal situation, drawn in by Saki. Saki seems to see her in a way others don't, but only offers her one solution to her problems - death - which is not totally unappealing to Mai, but she definitely seems uncertain at the same time. Saki is using Mai as a way to unload her feelings, and definitely projecting onto her, even trying to get Mai to validate her worldview. Saki wants Mai to be someone totally alone in this world like her, someone she can be everything to. When Yuri's call breaks that illusion, she snaps, questioning whether Mai, with her friend and her spotless arms, will even really die with her. When she strangles Mai, we see the shadowy eyes and hands of others' expectations and wants that have always haunted Mai - Saki is not so different from them, after all. Mai pushes her off and Saki is horrified to realize what she's doing isn't so different from how her father treated her. She decides to die on her own rather than pulling Mai down with her.
Mai definitely had feelings has complicated unrequited feelings for her married friend, too, which adds to that feeling that she's always let others dictate her life and let happiness slip away. However much Yuri does care for her, there will always be that unspoken distance between them. I like that Mai doesn't go with Yuri and her husband, instead having a moment of self-affirmation, choosing life, just for herself and the ocean. It seems at first like she might be talking to Saki, but of course then we find out Saki is alive.
I was surprised by the ending, but I don't think I dislike it. There's something strikingly bittersweet about it: after all Saki said about how choosing death was finally choosing her own freedom, Mai takes that choice from her. It almost feels like revenge - Saki found Mai and tried to drag her down into death with her, now Mai in turn keeps Saki from escaping life. It's definitely care, maybe even love, but there's a fun little edge of selfish attachment to it. Saki's quality of life probably isn't great either, if she's still in the hospital and in pain three months later - but then, looking at that fall, it's amazing she survived at all, so you can only imagine how fucked up she was right after. Mai knows how much it hurts, on multiple levels, but she won't let Saki go. That's her finally making a selfish choice.
Small visual things I really liked: Mai's little forced half-smiles. The marks still somehow left on her throat from when Saki strangled her, that moment imprinted into her skin forever. The grimy darkness of the cityscape and the mysterious shadows of nature. Love those shadowy eyes and hands, too.
