Yuunagi ni Mae, Boku no Ribbon

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Set in 1984, Hiroshima, ‘Yuunagi’ is a powerful manga packed with emotion—a boy finds a new passion in Ribbon Gymnastics Dancing. However, it is a sport that was (and still is) seen as ‘for girls’; meaning he will face many hardships trying to persue this new passion.
Backdropping this story is a family life where the main characters mother has recently passed away, leaving his father harsher and colder than before; and his sister picking up the pieces. The dynamics between these three characters are very well established and I am excited to see them explored further into the story—already, the sister has surprised me with ... the realistic and heartfelt writing of their relationship.
Another notable character is the Gymnastics Teacher, who wonderfully encourages our protagonist to follow his dreams despite knowing he will face some ridicule for them. I enjoy how she does not sugarcoat her feedback and thoughts, but still is a truly kind and motivating teacher. I see the character writing as the strongest part of the story, and as this is a very character driven tale it works immensely well!
Of course, another highlight is the gorgeous artstyle—you can see from the cover of the MAL page that Kurokawa is masterful at beautifully depicting motion and elegance in their characters.
The delicate artwork and storytelling combine with the raw emotions at play to bring this manga to life in a truly special way—definitely one to read!

A thoroughly beautiful manga about joy and finding your purpose. It captures that feeling of alienation in a place where you don't fully belong and one that society wouldn't let you feel that you are a part of it. It manages to tell a very simple story with a very simple character really, really well. Enhanced by the amazingly-beautiful art from every page, I really do believe that this might be the best manga out there.

The story follows Rintarou's want to become a rhythmic gymnastics performer and the hurdles that he needed to move past to be that. He suffered from stigma of people ... around him and society. He suffered from the refusal from his father to acknowledge him. He suffered from the fact that he won't fit in, no matter how much he proved himself. The story itself is very sad and somewhat dreadful at times, but the story never becomes too dark or too miserable. With every hurdle that he needed to jump, there will always be people around him that fully supports him. Whether it would be his sister, his teacher or his friends, he is not alone and even though the message is simple, to see Rintarou fully smile just from the joy of dancing is so, so beautiful to see and I cried a lot of times reading it.

This manga manages to evoke a lot of emotions in me. That feeling of suffocation of the difficulty of being what you want to be. That fleeting feeling of happiness of that brief moment when you just feel alright. That feeling of desperation of knowing that the person you care the most not believing in you. This manga is about freedom and purpose and I really do believe that it works so well in evoking those exact feeling to the readers.

Lastly, the art is beautiful. Every character is drawn beautifully and with a lot of character, especially Rintarou. The movement and motion of everything feels fluid and imaginative. As someone that is not the most familiar with this sport, I really feel all the impact, swiftness and beauty of everything. There are also a lot of beautiful individual scenes where the artist is just flexing its muscle and I really welcome it. It is beautiful.

Subjectively, this is one of the best mangas out there, as this story and its message feels extra personal to me. Objectively, it is not a perfect manga, as a majority of the characters feel a little too flat, there are some cliche moments and the story is quite generic. That being said, I really enjoy this manga despite its shortcomings. This manga is about human's resiliency, or stubbornness, to get what we want and the utter joy of finally getting it. It is a short and beautiful manga.