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Oct 13, 2024
This has quickly become one of my favorite manga, one of my favorite BL (if we want to consider it such, as the first BL ever published) and one of my favorite Moto Hagio's manga.
First of all, the art is lovely. It is a very subjective matter but Moto Hagio's 70s art for me is just perfect. She also manages to throw so many emotions on a page that sometimes I just paused to wonder why. There are clues waved into the apparently simple stories and they are not communicated through dialogue, but through art only. There are moments where Juli is shaking, where he
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freezes while hearing an event (a fight) and intervenes with far too much anxiousness than expected, and then there is the way his dreams are drawn and the room is presented. This manga has so much.
There are actually multiple plot lines that all revolve around the concept of love and acceptance. There is Thomas, who kills himself in the first page of the manga, and who has been loving Juli for a long time. There is Eric who loves his mother more than anything else in the world and it is then through Juli. There is Oscar, also in love with Juli, a stable sort of love which is also able to take a step aside - but also there is the love for his father and his inability to express love, and how close he goes to losing Juli and his real father because of it. And of course there is Juli, the mystery and center of it all.
At the end of the day, I think Heart of Thomas is almost like a religious parable. Juli takes the role of the sinner who needs to be saved by Jesus's death and Thomas, but later also Eric, become Jesus who dies and sacrifices himself to be able to fully communicate his love and save the sinner. Thomas sacrifices himself to donate Juli his wings (his total, unwavering, almost God-like love) and Eric also offers to give Juli his wings, unsure even what Juli means when he insists he is unlovable, he cannot be loved and he had lost his wings forever.
The truth it, for how I read it, the story is about the trauma of sexual abuse. There is nothing explicit in the manga, we only know that Siegfried seduced Juli and then asked him to come into the room. Juli says he chose Siegfried over Thomas, putting the choice in the context of feelings, love, attractions. Once there the manga tells us that Siegfried and his friends whipped Juli, burnt him, and made him kneel in front of them. Juli's words are something along the lines of "they did everything they wanted with me". Furthermore, the whole manga is full of Juli's shame, self hatred, this conviction that he is tainted, different from others. It really resonated so much. Juli's desire to die and to kill Thomas, because it is impossible that Thomas coule ever love him are at the core of the main interactions between him and Eric.
Truly a haunting manga, but surprisingly it had a bitter sweet happy ending too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Oct 6, 2024
This was probably one of my least favorite among Moto Hagio's manga, but still a great story with amazing art overall. It does not have the sophisticated story-telling of "Barbara" or "Silver Triangle" but a simpler plot.
Sei is a young girl living on Earth and dreaming of Mars. In reality she is a Martian, a white-haired red-eyed human who was born on Mars and is seen by other humans as a dangerous alien. The whole plot deals with Sei's desire to go back to Mars, to her people and culture, with the difficult feelings of a population who was de facto genocided and colonized.
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There are some twists and turns, especially regarding Sei's friend, who is the one who decides to take her to Mars, and while I truly loved the human element of it, I found the plot underneath it not particularly exciting! Still very enjoyable, and still a touching story of someone who had to leave their land after colonization.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Oct 3, 2024
I feel so many emotions. Moto Hagio has quickly become one of my favorite authors overall, not just manga, and I feel like she is one of the best narrative authors out there in the world.
The way she introduce plot elements - so slowly, so subtly, one by one, it leaves you wondering what story you are really reading.
Barbara is a story about families, at its core, about individuality, identity and who people really are. I am shocked by the ending, I feel like Moto Hagio appeared to me to ask for a wish and I said "Please, let the characters be happy, please save
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everyone", and she did it, and then when I started crying because I read the ending she said "You should have been careful what you wished for."
Barbara is about a mysterious island. It appeared in the sea of Japan, out of nowhere, but it also exists in the dreams of a Aoba, a girl who has been in a coma since the brutal murder of her parents. The story is set in a strange futuristic world where supernatural events are considered commonly scientific events and the protagonist, Watarai, is a scholar of dreams and someone who can enter people's dreams.
The plot has multiple lines: the mysteries of the planet Mars, the relationship between Aoba and her family, between Watarai and his son, the horror elements of individualism, discrimination, human experiments - it is impossible to describe without spoilers. It just left me sobbing like a child.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 27, 2024
I could read and find only 5 of these short stories, so I will review those. In general the theme seems to be about loss and mourning.
1. 11-gatsu no Gymnasium
A sort of spin off/alternative Heart of Thomas. It follows Eric and Thoma, both students at a male college and how Thoma is beloved by all but Eric, who resembles Thoma, truly dislikes him. The story was a bit over dramatic, and you can tell it is quite old in the author's work.
5/10
6. Bianca
I was not a big fan of this story, it seemed to me like it was missing something, but the art is
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beautiful. The story itself is about a painter named Clara who starts remembering of her old friend Bianca, narrating then what happened to her. It follows the line of a child who does not really partecipate to the world of adults and free in a completely different way than anyone else.
What I found interesting is that the page of Bianca dancing in the forest is the same page Keiko Takemiya talks about in her biography, where she mentions how Moto Hagio's art, and in particular her horizontal lines to create a background forest, changed the way other artists were depicting the same backgrounds.
6/10
7. Sayo no Nuu Yukata (Yukata Sewn by Sayo)
A classic emotional punch and a surprisingly sweet and private story about mourning for a mother who passed away.
9/10
8. Aki no Tabi (Autumn Journey)
Following the tone of the previous story, this is also partially about mourning and rediscovering your family. I am still wondering if I fully got the ending and the general theme, but it felt to me like this one shot wanted to express just a desire for closure.
7/10
9. Kawaisou na Mama (Poor Mama)
Wild, wild one shot! The story starts with a man attending the funeral of his wife, alongside their kid and then develops the kid's relationship with the woman and how she was suffering for one lost love. But this is also the only story that had quite a surprising ending.
7/10
And these are the ones missing:
2. Yuki no Ko (Snow child)
3. Tou no Aru Ie (House with a tower)
4. Shiroi Tori ni Natta Shoujo (The Girl Who Became a White Bird)
5. Shiroki Mori Shiroki Shounen no Fue (White Forest White Boy Flute)
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Sep 26, 2024
- Sunroom ni te (In the Sunroom, 1970)
Beautiful short story, one of the first ever manga stories considered shounen ai/BL, so even historically this is so interesting to read. I also recently read Takemiya's biography and this was part of her one shots where she was trying to explore the theme and what the magazine would allow her to publish.
8/10
- Hohoemu Shounen (The Laughing Boy, 1972)
This was also pretty good. The story follows a painter and his beloved as they accept to live with a young beautiful man who is suffering of a terminal illness. The one shot deals with acceptance of one self,
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I think, with the painter accepting his love and the young man accepting his own nature.
7/10
- 20 no Hiru to Yoru (20 Days and Nights, 1973)
Don't ask me what this was please, I was so confused.
2/10
- Star! (1974)
A classic over dramatic story of jealousy and love. The full on tragedy of a singer who takes an ambitious man under his wing.
6/10
- Mister no Kotori (The Mr.'s Baby Bird, 1975)
This was my absolute favorite and it even broke my heart a little. It follows the story of an old man who often is angry and annoyed with the people around him. One day he sees a beautiful boy, a bird as he calls him, and this boy starts following him like a ghost. I think you can definitely tell this was a bit of an older story. When I read the biography Takemiya says that after/during writing Pharaoh no Haka (1974) she started to find confidence in her ability to draw and write again and she started to enjoy making manga once more.
This one shot looks much more cohesive than the previous one, the story feels like has been organized from start to finish to deliver the maximum emotional punch. I would definitely recommend even just reading this one (and maybe the first one shot given its historical importance).
10/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 26, 2024
I only read the first story which is "Toki wo Yuku Uma" and it was absolutely delightful. Much more streamlined than many other of the old Takemiya's short stories. It follow the journey of a snowglobe (with a horse inside) through time, from person to person. Initially we are introduced to the snowglobe in a warzone and then we travel back in time, to the moment the snowglobe was created and first picked it up, out of love. Every story used the object to connect people to their dream and the plot travels from romantic love, familiar love, friendship, the hope that there are good
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people even in difficult times of war, the dreams of seeing your homecountry after it has been ripped away from you, and the cruelty of war. I was truly surprised and I am so disappointed the other stories have not been translated yet, I bet they are as good as the first one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 26, 2024
I was unsure if I wanted to select Mixed feelings or Recomended for this, but I settled on Recommended because of two main things:
1) Keith
2) The ending
3) The world building
I have many problems with this manga, in particular in the way it really needed some more chapters to flesh out the plot and the characters. But first let me explain what I enjoyed:
3) The world building. I really enjoyed the uneasyness of the setting. Every character had this thirst to see Terra (Earth), even if we are told there are other planets to live in. The idea also that a computer would try to
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set up a perfect society where children are raised by assigned parents and then mindwiped to better adapt to society without trauma? Chef kiss. The mu was a bit messy, but still an interesting subplot, especially when it is found out that the computer (Mother) could easily get rid of the mu if it wanted. Which brings me to:
2) The ending. I really enjoyed this idea that society was just a big experiment, this idea that the best way to save humanity was some kind of fight for dominance where the mu had Physis (created by the computer) to guide them to Terra and give them hope for Terra, and humans have Keith. Both are there to be the competitor of the other as the solution that was found was that only one of them can get to the truth controlling computer and take power. Keith destroying that computer as well was a great choice, it felt a bit like he was freeing humans from this competition between them and the mu, but also free them from this dream of a perfect controllable society. It truly felt like a bit of an analysis on a controlling Mother who is pitting their children one against the other.
1) Keith. He was just amazing. Going from doubts, from the pain of finding out he was created in a lab, from accepting his role and being fully radicalized but then at the same time covering for Matsuka who is a mu. A nice complex character, and I wish he had been the only main character.
My main problems is that a lot of the story follows characters who are seemingly there for not reason. Soldier Blue? I am not sure why he is necessary, what was his role in all of this? He appears and immediately dies, it feels more like the first chapter was supposed to be a circular one shot where Jomy takes Soldier Blue's role and the journey continued instead of part of a bigger story. Soldier Blue could have been easily merged with Physis, with her taking his role of the initial leader but looking for a new leader for the mu, someone able to take them to Terra.
Another character that felt absolutely baffling was Tony. I feel like he was there just because of Takemiya's love for the "mischievous young man character"... truly unable to explain why he is in the story because the manga is not long enough to explore the relationships around Jomy. Furthermore, while Keith is radicalized and needs Matsuka as a character to show to the readers that there is still some humanity in him, Jomy does not have the same necessity. I think it could have worked if Takemiya had gone a bit more into "the risk of Tony to be radicalized against humans vs Jomy's desire for peace", but it was just too messy.
And Jomy... sadly I did not like him. His introduction was great, but then the manga seemed much more interested in following Keith, or secondary characters than Jomy. He felt very undefined, and I think the presence of Tony and Soldier Blue made him too crowded, pulled in too many direction.
Overall I have more hope for the anime as the long 1 season might be able to flesh out the story much more.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Sep 26, 2024
I am pretty sure this collections contains 5 stories, most of them revolving around character analysis and in general just a window on human nature and in a lot of cases parental relationships with their children. All of these stories are amazing, I read them from different collections, but I remember I was fighting tears when reading the first three.
Bittersweet is the theme of the book.
1. Iguana no Musume (Iguana Girl)
This is one of the most realistic, terrifying and touching representation of a scape goat child. Rika is that child. When she is born her mother sees her in the shape of an iguana and
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for this reason will treat her always as the second choice, while dearly loving her other daughter. Rika grows up always being criticized by her mother. It was incredible hard but so satisfying to see that things are not easily black and white and loving your mother will in many case be with you even in these difficult situations.
2. Catharsis
Another heartbreaking parental story. The protagonist is a young man preparing for college, but since his best friend died he had been running from home day after day. The story touches on the need to sometimes break contact with your parents, with apathy and depression and mourning. The scenes that depict the meetings between the protagonist and the parents felt so realistic, incredibly human.
3. Gogo no Hizashi (Afternoon Sunshine)
Another bittersweet story, this time exploring a woman who is realizing she might be a stranger in her marriage. She then meets a younger man in her cooking club and starts to feel like life has returned, like she is young again and she can live once more. Oh boy, that ending. Please, just know be ready to fully cry while reading this volume.
4. Gakkou e Iku Kusuri (The medicine to go to school)
The story follows the life of a high school student who one day wakes up to find all the people around him turning into objects and animals. They still talk to him, but all their faces have become unrecognizable. The only people who still look human are his best friend and the girl he has a crush on.
This one was a bit harder for me to understand, slightly enigmatic, but I do believe it is trying to explore the need for connection, and to really see others for who they are.
5. Yuujin K
A very short story (I think only four pages) about two young men, one clearly in love with the other and bullying him through school years.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 26, 2024
1. Hanshin
One of the most famous Moto Hagio's one shot, Hanshin deals with two twins who were born attached to each other's. One of them is able to move, eat, process food but the other is unable to fully function, and is forced to absorb nutrients from her twin. I am pretty sure one represents the "simple, innocent, beautiful idea of femininity society imposes on women" (the twin that absorbs the nutrients), and it is only by freeing herself from her twin that the other character can survives, but they are both two faces of the same person.
2. Ragini
Very short story which I was not
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a big fan of, but the plot twist was pretty interesting.
3. Slow Down
This is one of the few one shot I did not particularly care for. It is on the shorter side as well, and follows a young man who subjected himself to a deprivation experiment.
4. Suimu (A drunken dream)
The story starts with a woman who keeps having the same dream: she sees the face of a man she really loves and then she falls dead. I cannot say more or I will spoil, just know that I felt like the story was not going anywhere until the very end where Hagio pulls it together quite masterfully. The story has element of genderqueerness too!
Story 5 and story 6 I could not find anywhere to read.
7. Marine
This story is almost a mystery mixed with romance. The protagonist is a young kid who is trying to help his sick mother. One day a teenager girl gives him a silver earring to pay for medicine. The two keep meeting and talking, and while the child grows up the girl seemingly remains the same. Beautiful mystery, you definitely can guess what happened/is happening mid-way but that does not take anything away from the reveal.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Sep 26, 2024
This volume contains four short stories. Two ended up my absolute favorite one shots by Moto Hagio, and the other two were okay. I will review each one.
1. Houmonsha (Visitor)
I have never seen before a story tackle this delicate topic before. I was so shocked, especially because this one was one of the first Moto Hagio manga I have read. The plot follows the life of a kid (one of the protagonists for Heart of Thomas) and his family life, the way he lives a happy life alongside his unhappy and more frustrated by the day mother and his sometimes cold and absentee father. The
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story is almost circular, the hunting trip the kid and the father have at the start is there to tie together the full plot, by the end.
I won't say more, because of spoilers.
2. Shiro (Castle)
I wasn't particularly a fan of this novel. It is quite simple, with another kid getting attached to an older student at a boarding school. It follows kind of the path of the angel (the older student) and the devil (another friend), and the complexities of being good or bad, and how the protagonist thinks this determines how much his parents love him.
3. Egg Stand
One of the most tragic Moto Hagio's stories I have read, and probably on the longer side of the one shots. It is set in France, during World War II, in a Paris occupied by the Nazi army. The protagonist is a cabaret dancer who adopts a teen she found in the park. They will meet people in the resistance, and in particular there is a small quiet beautiful love story between her and a French man, but the real protagonist of the story is how violence, abuse, sexual abuse and war can destroy someone's soul.
4. Tenshi no Gitai (Angel Mimic)
As all of Moto Hagio's story, this also follows the initial introduction of the plot that then reveals the real main topic only by the end/middle. While it is not a mindblowing story, it was a quiet exploration of the main character and their trauma. The story starts with a woman trying to kill herself and being saved by a man who will then become his friend.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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