Manga Spotlight Nov'24

Manga recommendations - Shiawase Toriming, The Summer Hikaru Died

📅 Last Updated: 27th November 2024

The Summer Hikaru Died

This week’s recommendation is The Summer Hikaru Died, a thrilling supernatural series about a high school boy's, Yoshiki's, relationship with an entity that has stolen the identity of his dead best friend, Hikaru.

Set in rural Japan, the manga uses the remoteness of its setting to its advantage to create a sense of loneliness and dread. Its most prominent feature is the mangaka's choice to have a constant overlay of onomatopoeias to give the reader a sense of immersion coupled with chaos while reading. It also makes the moments of silence more pronounced and that much scarier. The manga is somewhat Lovecraftian in the horror it elicits, as it strongly relies on the entities that haunt the village being unknowable and a product of the disconnect from the rest of society. The characters are essentially trapped in a bubble with nowhere to run when it comes to facing the horrors that haunt them. It brings out a strange eroticism in the fear and darkness of it all. A pleasure beyond human understanding, yet all too familiar to us.

To top it all off, the manga is visually stunning, with clear and sharp character designs, careful backgrounds, and extremely detailed psychedelic elements on every other page.

MAL, Anilist, Wikipedia, Official Website

Credits: Miu

Shiawase Toriming

This week’s recommendation is Shiawase Toriming, a slice-of-life manga by Warabimochi Kinako.

It follows Suzu, an art college student stuck in something of a creative rut, who slowly emerges from it with the help of birds and her new birdwatcher “friend” Tsubasa. For fellow birdwatchers or bird lovers in general, Shiawase Toriming isn’t just a treat — it is an entire bird feeder. The drawings of Japanese birdlife are as vividly gorgeous as they are ornithologically accurate. It is informative, too. Expect to learn a lot on such topics as identification cues, responsible wildlife photography etiquette, and the Japanese migratory bird scene. It’s so accurate it has an official collaboration with the notable Japanese birdwatching magazine BIRDER.

Those who are indifferent to our feathered friends, fear not! The biology is anchored by a sweet and mature story of growing as both an artist and a person. The manga’s observations on birds also parallelly become observations on the people watching them, as they tie into Suzu's struggles on the artistic front or Tsubasa's struggles fitting in and making connections. The art is a highlight: pretty and relaxing woodland vibes, with colours that pop, especially on the birds’ plumage. There's a fair degree of experimentation with the 4koma form too. If you think the idea of CBDCT (Cute Birds Doing Cute Things) sounds great, or if you’re a fan of works like Yuru Camp or Slow Loop, this is the manga for you.

MAL, Anilist, Official Website (Japanese)

Credits: Sakaido

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