autumn

writer (derogatory)

  • they/them

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unfortunately, they keep paying me to play games and watch anime

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  • 🧑‍💻 Freelance writer, editor

  • 📰 Columnist @unwinnable

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Last night I got really stoned and read like 30 chapters of Tamifull's How Do We Relationship? (via Viz Manga) and I can't tell if it's like actually that good* or I was just hallucinating: An analysis.


*Okay so this (to my now sober recollection) is written really well with complicated character arcs and many subplots all revolving around similar points of character growth and learning, and it dances all that around being queer and varying degrees of out about it. But it's also just paced and formatted/paneled/boarded/lettered (not a manga critic clearly) so well it was like watching an episode of Bocchi the Rock (the highest point of comparison for anything, imo). And after reading a lot of Blue Box and Snow White with the Red Hair, that felt like such a revelation.

This is when I had to stop myself. Was this all just crafted so well I was breezing through it and visualizing everything like re-reading a favorite novel, or was I just starting to hallucinate what I was reading and completely detached from the actual passage of time? Well, we can look at what the manga does.

There are many establishing shots and panels that use space to slowly zoom in on characters in a scene. It's cut away and page turns accentuate punchlines. It really feels like it's doing camera work like Fujimoto. I could so easily follow a long conversation between multiple characters while cutting away to different characters' inner monologues, and then there are the several chapter long flashbacks that themselves contain tangents (kinda like how this whole analysis is framed as a DFW-long footnote) but it's all easily threaded into one linear narrative.

Like this page from chapter 18. First, it's a hard cut of a page turn from them having sex to sitting at school behind their friends the next day looking exhausted. The major shift in tone and volume is communicated in the white space (the previous page, not gonna picture that, filled in with ink/shadow as things got sultrier). We see a conversation behind the pair that's not totally irrelevant to some thoughts each are privately working through. And as we literally zoom in, we then get a set up/tease and the punch line hits in the first box of the next page revealing her hickeys. It's gold. (Alt text gives context and a reading to the pages).

Miwa and Saeko sit at a table behind their friends who are talking about first relationships. The pair are visibly sleepy. Saeko slowly turns to Miwa and forms an expression.
Leading to the first panels on the neighboring page.
In the following panel Miwa responds to Saeko teasing her with an outburst in a close-up panel revealing she is covered in hickeys

But combining that camerawork and timing with great writing that's more than just platitudes about gay relationships to round out the comedy, it leads to moments like this (and I am really just channeling a Super Eyepatch Wolf script at this point cus I have never written in this detail about manga beyond the writing alone)...

Saeko and Miwa were about to kiss after an argument that wasn't really resoved, but heard footsteps. Saeko begins to walk away since Miwa has been uncomfortable being visible around strangers, but in a move mirroring her personal growth elsehwere she stops Saeko and kisses her as the stranger walks by. The panels are vertical rectangles each getting bigger as if the sound of footsteps is growing louder punctuating each moment of the scene
The scene from chapter 28 continues across a page turn.
The scene continues but gives way to Miwa's lingering shame at being out as well as her guilt for not being totally honest with Saeko in their previous conversation leading up to this moment.

So I think it's good. Maybe even better stoned, but definitely good on its own. The last time I got way too into something I thought would be trashy-but-fun (I was not stoned at the time) was when I started watching Free! as a bit and fell in love with those stupid boys. But that's another story.


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in reply to @autumn's post:

Damn I think you are 100% correct with this and I absolutely missed it while reading, and when I think about it it explains why certains moments hits as much as they did (the "I just wanted to be loved" panel hit me like a truck, among others, and is engraved in my brain) Which doesnt surprised me too much cause I was so caught up in the story and emotional while reading. It's probably my favorite yuri ever (cf https://cohost.org/beatrickshot/post/2665240-just-to-put-the-cont )
When I'm rdy to reread this, I'll pay attention