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Jun 16, 2023
“The flow of time carries everyone along, moment by moment. It never stops.”
There are already many comprehensive, exhaustive reviews of this manga – so instead I will focus on a strand of the work that I, personally, took away from this beautiful work of literature. The basic premise is that of an android, Alpha, looking after the café left behind by her owner, in the hope that they will return – Alpha, being an android, is not affected by the passing of time in the same way that humans are, her body remains the same throughout time.
Having said that, what really made this a
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special read was how the mangaka Hitoshi Ashinano was still able to convey the passing of time through Alpha’s eyes in such a tangible manner. Instead of feeling the effects of time through the deterioration of her body, her mind etc., she instead observes the passing of time through her relationship with others around her. As the manga nears its inevitable conclusion, a sense of melancholy begins to seep in – as those who Alpha saw as younger siblings, Makki and Takahiro, soon grow older, get jobs and move out of their small countryside home. Alpha is left behind with her less-than-prosperous café and the vague hope of seeing her owner again. Eventually she isn’t just waiting for her owner to return, the waiting list extends to Takahiro and Makki.
There’s also a lingering sense of regret, of missing out on the joy of youth. The recurring use of the Misago, the naked unaging lady, as a metaphor for the things we leave behind as we grow older was especially poignant – about clinging on to things in the past that we can’t change, Takahiro, Makki and Ayase all desperate to just see the Misago one more time, they wish they could relive that experience and engage with her as opposed to freezing out of fear. At least they were able to live this experience in the first place, when Makki’s daughter has her own encounter with the Misago she asks Alpha, “Have you met her too?” and she can only reply with “Mmm… not yet” – as if she will ever get the chance (the Misago only reveals herself to children). I, myself, know that there are many aspects of my childhood that I wish I approached differently – having lived a very sheltered life thus far, I never got to explore my surroundings through the heightened lens of a child and as I grow up, my hometown seems less and less exciting.
However, that’s not the point of Yokohama Kaidaishi Kikou. It’s not about self-pity, regret and loneliness – because despite it all, Alpha experiences her life with an unrelenting optimism. How Ashinano is able to capture a beauty in what should be a morbid setting (a setting with constant reminders of humanity’s past, and its destruction). Like, the scenes in which Alpha looks out over a sea lit by the street lights of the past that only just peer over the top – a relic of humanity’s past, a civilisation destroyed by the rising sea levels, yet it remains a sight of utter beauty. You can't control the past, you can't relive the past - yet there is happiness to be found in the present, or in reminiscing about those immortal memories of times gone by.
“When I sense someone and turn around, it’s often just a streetlamp, tree, or a white human shaped mushroom there. There, the remains of former streets and plazas, the places where long ago, people used to linger. Are the “recollections of people” that the Earth remembers. My place is Café Alpha. The places I have seen, the things about everyone I will never forget.”
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 22, 2023
Honeymoon Salad is a solid read - a tonally distinct poly-romance that assumes a melancholic, down-beat mood that is occasionally penetrated by brief rays of sunshine that reveals itself as our three leads find solace in each other's prescence. The mangaka concludes with a brief note, essentially commenting on what the text means to her - and she summarises it by stating that it's about being comfortable in one's own skin, simply being yourself as opposed to hiding behind a facade to impress others or compromising on what one wants in order to avoid being a burden to someone you love, as those loved ones
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will love you regardless. To be honest, sure, that's probably what I should take from this tale! In retrospect, I can appreciate how this manifests in each of our three leads - Saito Ichika, a reserved country mouse who constantly apologises for her actions, Saito Youka, Minori's ex who always hid her true self behind a playful façade, and Minori himself, a man fearful of wasting away his life, not having a passion to fight for (not knowing that this can manifest itself in fighting for those he loves, rather than a career).
The art is simple, as to downplay the mood and this felt appropriate for what is mostly a fairly downbeat, simply told romance. I'm not entirely sure what to make of the final few chapters, they aren't abominable but the manga wastes time when it could have really explored the poly- aspect of this relationship. Ultimately, this aspect of the manga felt underdeveloped, yet it's the few moments when this comes to the forefront that really stood out to me as being fairly interesting. Still, it was good to see Youka take the spotlight, as her relationship with Minori felt more palpable than Ichika's. In actuality, I never really believed her romance - she felt more like a maternal figure to these two characters, an intermediary but any scene with her and Minori alone felt really awkward and their chemistry, to me, was non-existence. It made sense to begin with, due to her apologetic nature and traumatic past, but she never really comes out of her shell over the course of the narrative. Ultimately, I was more invested in Minori rekindling his romance with Youka as there was more to chew on with their relationship. Their time together was the highlight of the read to me, and I would have preferred for this to have focused more on the two of them. I do feel, that for a manga about a poly relationship, the almost omnibus nature of the storytelling feels counterintuitive - I wished the mangaka could have embraced the three-way nature of it a little more.
The ending is abrupt, and slightly disappointing even if it's ultimately a happy ending for all - I'm not sure what I wanted, but it felt... odd.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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