Sakura Namiki

Starra Oct 16, 2019

7.5

So this is a fascinating manga. While the GL elements are very light, I put that down to it being written in the 1950s. That said, it's clear that Yukiko has feelings for Chikage. Ayako does too, although hers are slightly more ambiguous. It's also one of the series that started GL (Girls' Love), which is partially why I read it. There's not a lot to the story, but it's short. What I found interesting was that it reads more like a novel with images at times, as there's a lot of descriptive narrating that you don't see in manga nowadays. It's used to describe Yukiko's emotions and to summarise events. The art is... dated, but it's not terrible. There's a certain charm to it even now. A lot of people will probably find it over-simplified, though, I suppose. From a purely historical point of view, it's a good, short read. I kind of wish there was more to it, though I understand why there isn't. If you're looking for something old that isn't completely outdated and awful by today's standards, I'd say it's worth checking out, since it won't take up much of your time.

Curiousmadra Sep 4, 2021

5

So this is basically one of the oldest “GL” manga out there and it is confusing to understand if the main character is in love with her “rich friend” or not. I would just put this into the category of an “all girls school playing ping pong”, it’s just what it is at the end of the day..,,

nathandouglasdavis Sep 4, 2021

6

The layout choices in some of the sections is so different from what I'm used to that at times I found myself focusing more on the artwork than on the events going on. For the first dozen pages or so, the basic structure is for each page to have a single panel, sometimes framed, which will be slightly off-centered. Then there will be another picture, of girls or cherry blossom trees, overlaid onto that picture in the foreground and text in the leftover white space. After that initial storybook style layout, it does change into a more expected paneling layout. Though even within the paneled paged, there is still way more experimentation with the shapes and placement of the panels and dialogue boxes than normal. Like, there's one instance where an arc of of large ping pong balls splits the page and serves as both a divider between panels and as narration boxes (page 20). The intensity of the ping-pong balls is also sometimes shown in more abstract and artsy ways (see pages 37 and 40). In general, the representations of the flow of action can feel awkward. This manga is more focused on the inner thoughts and emotional distress of the characters, and it uses a lot of direct narration to get across what it really wants to get across (sometimes even narrating super mundane things like "Yukiko vigorously twists the tap open and scrubs [feir] face"). The tears are sparkles and there are some corny, emo-wallowing looks that seem a bit overdramatic. The background characters are inconsistent, sometimes being so simple that they are bald. The eyes are black voids with a single, creepy white pinpoint. The most odd thing to me though out of all of these odd things in the artwork is that every page throughout this whole manga has the artist's signature on it. I'll say that again. The artist signed every page... The story itself is centered around behind-the-back bitchtalk and what it means to conduct yourself with sportsmanship. Specifically, there was a certain point during a ping-pong game where Yukiko had given a soft return instead of smashing it. This was done in response to Chikage accidentally tripping. Yukiko ends up asking femself whether fe was being sportsmanlike when fe gave Chikage mercy like that (like, wanting to compete fairly without relying on unfortunate happenstance) or if fe was giving Chikage special treatment because fe has a crush on fem. We also get some backstory, but that's the basic point of tension that gets dealt with. It was a decently entertaining story and I'm glad I read it.