Bokura no Shikisai
Our Colors

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HOORAY I’m so happy and delighted that the publisher was able to grant my wish through Netgalley!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really enjoyed author-sans other work “My Brothers Husband” so I know well that I was going to enjoy his LGBTQ+ slice-of-life style of writing in this manga also! I really liked the fact how it touches on figuring out yourself as a teenager, especially dealing the pressures of the traditional sense of “boy must be matched with girl normally”. In reality, we all have our own preferences when it comes to relationships in general. Author san was able to do this well by involving a ... young lad who understandly is catastrophes the “what ifs” when he does admit that he is gay to family and his friend Nao. This would really relate to people out there who are going through the same thing as Sora like I really would encourage everyone to read this manga whenever they can. The drawings at the start of each chapter were really cute and put a smile to my face!

Yeah guys, take a read with this manga, it’s so well done!

Our Colors has a great premise, but a somewhat “meh” execution. Compared to Gengoroh Tagame’s other “safe for work” manga, My Brother’s Husband, this story feels considerably less fleshed out.

I think the biggest problem is that the narrative bit off more than it could chew given the manga’s short length. The platonic relationship between Mr. Amamiya and Sora doesn’t have a ton of time to develop since the story is also focusing on Sora’s relationship to his childhood friend, his family, and his crush at the same time. By the end, none of these plots resolved in a gratifying way; it felt like all of ... them could have been explored further.

Though the art is generally good, there are several moments where things look a bit off. Every now and then, the characters’ feelings are expressed through magical realism, where the panels suddenly portray things in a more fantastical way. Each time this happens, the transition is extremely awkward. I don’t believe this was an intentional choice on the author’s part; these sequences felt clumsy and jarring.

Finally, without spoiling anything, I think one part of the ending totally undermined the rest of the story. This moment left a really bad taste in my mouth because it felt completely unearned and inappropriate. Some key themes and ideas are set-up and reinforced for 99% of the narrative, only to be disregarded at the very end for seemingly no reason. It’s really unfortunate, because there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had with this story, but it seems to sabotage itself so frequently.

Overall, I’m left with pretty mixed feelings. There are some good ideas here, and I mostly enjoyed my experience, but Our Colors just didn’t leave much of an impact. I hope that Tagame’s next venture into SFW manga is a bit more polished.

Some good, some bad. I know that Gengoroh Tagame is capable of making a compelling story and drawing in amazing and endearing simplicity, his eye to attention is in the characters.

I'm a little disappointed in the emphasis on the title, the protagonist's emphasis on color particularly in the descriptions of surroundings, of characters, of clothing...... and the lack of color present. Granted, I know that'll cost both the publisher and the consumer extra and even though I rented it from the library, I've seen manga engage in portraying some pages with color, it would add such beauty to the story. (HUGE SPOILER TO THE ENDING) ... I understand stories have engaged in age gap exploration and I can see its merit but not when it's an underage kid in high school and an older person post-50s, I felt that it might venture there and I was hoping it wasn't but it did and the concerns of the ex-wife character and the mom came true, that the adult engaged in a poor decision. I've seen Gengoroh Tagame's work be better and do better, and unfortunately I'm simply a human who compares this work to My Brother's Husband and it's a tall ask.

The good: it's a simple story and a quick-ish read, while I see some reviewers have noted the lack of internet on behalf of the protagonist, there's something about him that is just kind of naive which makes sense, he's young and dumb figuring things out. I enjoyed watching the value of community form and I'm glad there wasn't some melodramatic back and forth about outing that you see in other teenage-misunderstanding stories. The characters felt realistic and grounded and quite simple. They apologized to each other for such mishaps and they promised to grow, I quite enjoyed that. I loved the support once the protagonist comes out. Was the plot the best? Not really, I think the author is so much more talented but just wasn't the most fulfilling plot for me, but part of me thinks, was the author writing to his current self or his past self with the ending in mind, it's a little rough to be fully okay with things. Wish the protag was a little older.