This is a very interesting and striking manga collection of three pretty dark short stories. I haven’t read the author’s other work, Blue Period, which is about a teenager discovering art in high school, but I had looked at it before and liked the art style, which convinced me to pick this up. Since it’s a standalone consisting of three short stories, I figured it would be a good insight into her style and I liked the striking cover a lot.
I liked all three stories in this collection. “Nude Model” is the lightest in tone of the bunch, about a teenage boy nude modeling for the outcast art girl in his class. He’s been told he has to have sex with her by his terrible friends as one of these grim dares that jerky teens do (a sort of parallel universe “My Fair Lady” vibe). In order to get in her good graces, he starts hanging out with her and ends up nude modeling for her, which has somewhat heartwarming relational consequences. There’s a real edge to this one, with the threat of sexual and physical violence hanging over everything, and the casual cruelty of teenagers is well portrayed. “Girl” is another high school set story portraying the gulf between girls and boys, with the main character mocking and harassing a girl in his class. His consequences for this action were very viscerally shown. I thought this was the strongest story in the collection and had a raw power. The final story, “Kamiya,” is told in two parts and follows a woman who gets involved with a vampire. While this was the longest story, I also found it to be the weakest and the most opaque. It was fine but didn’t really stick with me.
This is a strong collection overall and I’m glad I picked it up. It’s good to be challenged and confronted with the dark side of life and to consider the everyday indignities and violence that people so often have to deal with. Yamaguchi’s art style fits her tone perfectly, with a grotesque edge and strong use of shadows.
Warnings for sexual assault, physical assault, intense misogyny, murder, blood, sexual harassment.
