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- BirthdayNov 27, 1991
- LocationSaint-Petersburg, Russia
- JoinedApr 20, 2010
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Jan 25, 2024
Sakikusa no Saku Koro was published in Russia in 2018 and despite its beautiful cover and interesting style was almost unnoticed by bloggers and readers. One of the reasons was the lack of information about the author and the plot.
However, this beautiful one-volume story deserves more attenitiion from readers. To begin with, it is one of the first works by the same Fumiko Fumi who stands behind one of the best seinen psychological series ever which is Bokura no Hentai.
Sakikusa no Saku Koro is very laconic and simple both in terms of style and plot, and at the same time it perfectly expresses everything that
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I love about Fumiko Fumi's later manga.
Essentially, it is a story of a love triangle between the main heroine, Sumika, and her cousins, Akio and Tinatsu. Sumika cannot take her eyes off Akio, who is popular with girls, and looks so closely that she accidentally unravels his secret, which he hides even from himself: Akio has a crush on his best friend. And yet, when Akio asks her to date, Sumika cannot refuse. But while she is absorbed in her and Akio's love story, she fails to notice her best friend Tinatsu's feelings.
The two main themes of this short manga are the intervention of an indifferent “observer”, destroying the fragile illusion of harmony and the longing for the feeling of non-loneliness, even if false. If it had not been written by Fumiko Fumi, the development and the ending of this simple story could have been completely different. But even if you don’t recognize the author by her style, you will quickly recognize her by her approach to psychology.
Unlike her later works, this one is simpler and lighter, but still very bitter. It is reminiscent of such good short works about school as Manatsu no Delta and Smells Like Green Spirit.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 10, 2021
Best josei title longer than 1 volume that I've ever read. published in 00's in France under the title Mlle Oishi
Each volume, as you can see, had a separate title: "Mlle Oishi, 28 years not married", "... 29 years old, not married", "... 32 years old, not married" and, finally, ". .32 years old, married. "
The end of the manga, as the title of the last volume hints, is a happy one. Hoever, the main character, Kon Oishi or Kon-chan, will come to it, not at all as you would think when you start reading the first volume. In the end, you will have to
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live with her for more than four years, and before your very eyes she will grow from a girl with two pigtails in thefirst panel of the manga (she is 28 there, she and her friend are preparing the first exhibition of handmade teddy bears) to the mother of the family on the cover of the fourth volume.
All volumes are quite clearly divided according to the periods of Kon-chan's life, and for each a separate review can be written.
In the first volume, Kon-chan is going to marry her recently divorced colleague. He proposes to her and immediately says that she needs to quit her job in the office, because she "is not able to do anything herself, and he will take care of her." After that begins what a woman with any experience in married can only call a horror and a psychological thriller. There is everything: huge sums that her fiancé borrows from her family under pretence of the future wedding, the ever-growing debts which become biggerevery time whens Kon-chan thinks that they have already paid everything off, horse races, unemployment, and absolutely naive Kon-chan who did not expect this from "family life".
In the second volume, a new life begins: friendship with a colleague at a new workplace, simple joys such as lunch in a nearby cafe, new acquaintances. And at the same time, the main theme is: where does love lead and how to maintain inner harmony, is it possible? Three stories develop in parallel. Kon-chan meets a new lover, a kind and pleasant, but frivolous guy. Kon-chan's brother, who is gay, seeks his love but instead gets rejection after rejection and sinks into despair. And finally, Kon-chan's friend, Tetsu, who cannot help falling in love with any girl who paid attention to him, and as a result finds himself in a very unpleasant situation.
In the third volume, after a time skip, Kon-chan, who has long abandoned her thoughts about marriage and the "normal" life in general, plunges headlong into her own business - design and sewing of accessories. She has to finally grow up - to help out Tetsu, to get her brother out of depression, to cope with grief herself, and at the same time to work a lot.
And only in the fourth volume does she finally actually becomes ready for the status of a "married woman" and for everything else, and along with her the rest of the characters suddenly grow up.
The morale here is simple: self-improvement and hard work on what you love, whatever it may be, help not only to withstand the most nasty circumstances, but also to live in a completely different way. Throughout history, Kon-chan has energy to confronts life's difficulties thanks to her hobby, sewing and knitting.Having lost her job in the office, she starts to work for a sewing store and works really hard even if it seems to be a simple job - she begins to study different types of fabrics, uses the opportunity to buy fabrics at a discount to work more herself, and even learns English to better understand foreign trends. When she has free time she spends it doing what she loves, and not worrying about the hardships of her life.
In this manga, there is no shonen-like approach along the lines of "I will become the king of pirates", no confidence in the future like in peacefule slice-of-life stories, no shojo naivety, no decadent moods, which can be often found in josei. This is a very harmonious story, although the life is not easy for characters.
I hope it will be republished or at least scanlated one day and find its readers in different countries.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 27, 2019
This is easily the worst Japanese manga ever published in Russian.
I am actually shocked that it has been published as tankobon not just in Japan, where they obviously should know better, but in other countries too! And such a lot of truly great one-shots and one-volume mangas rest unpublished and untranslated!
The art is just mediocre. Not shokingly bad, but rather bad - so it was definetely not published because of this.
The plot is non-existing. It rather is like porn, except there is no porn. A boy makes a figurine, it turns out to be alive and then without any reason, a series of battles
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between figurines begins. Some characters appear out of nowhere and say something random (which is kinda their motivation to battle, but it may change in the next chapter) and then the fight begins - so the "plot" betwwen the battles is the same as plot in porn - it exists only as an excuse to draw more battles. Which is kind of logical, because the only other manga the author ever published is a series of hentai one-shots.
The battles were actually so boring, that it was actually the first time ever I considered dropping a one-volume manga which I specifically bought. I've read it till the end hoping for any explanation or plot twist or logic or something which would make me understand why it was published in the first place. Alas! - I never understood.
There was actually one episode in the middle when it was getting better - a story about two figurines that by accident ended up in garbage and are trying to survive. There was even some drama in it - but it ended abruptly with a comic relief and wasn't really connected to other parts of the manga except happening in the same world.
It is not "so bad that it is actually good". It is just bad. Looks like the author just doesn't know what a scenario is or how stories work. Or like he had never ever read a manga from beginning to the end or watched a film, for that matter.
I just hope that nobody ever had read this as their first manga because it is a model of all the stereotypes about manga, especially shounen-manga. It is full of unmotivated violence and pantsu and devoid of any sense or plot.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Aug 7, 2017
A short manga published in France as a homage for 150 Anniversary of "Alice in Wonderland".
About plot. Elise, who looks, dresses and behaves very much like Alice, is a little girl born and living in Wonderland among strange people and animals in dresses alike. She is supposed to have hard life living with her adopted dormouse and working to earn some bread for two of them, not able to attend school anymore, but looks rather happy. But then a kind-hearted tortoise working in the school library adopts them both and she starts to have some ordinary living-with-strict-mother-having-to-do-chores-being-not-as-rich-as-her-classmates problems. We will never learn where are
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her parents, how she met her dormouse and stopped attending school and started to work to feed it, why she has aunt and uncle but was left alone in this situation and how she was enrolled in this prestigeous magic school in the first place. Because it's Wonderland.
The art and character design are really cute and have this dreamlike light feeling about them because of really fine, sometimes dash-and-dot, lines. Besides, the design really reminds of John Tenniel's illustrations for "Alice in Wonderland", only less exaggerated and caricaturical. If you love looking at postcard-like animals in suits and dresses and some victorianesque children for hours, this certainly is a manga for you.
Apart from the art, the manga is mediocre. This is your slice-of-life manga without any kind of plot or character development which makes people drop and hate slice-of-life manga. It is not really funny. It does not explain how characters bond together. Sometimes something kinda happens, but nothing changes, really, even on I-learned-something-today level. Ok, may be there was some I-learned-something today in a couple of chapters, kind of. And it ends with nothing after like two years of slowly changing magical seasons.
I will recommend it to anyone who wants some Victorian-fairy-tale like atmosphere and doesn't care for any plot logic or development. Probably can be enjoyed by children.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 17, 2017
This book with a long name has been recently published in Russia in attempt to promote the genre of light novel, which is relatively new for our reader.
Though I enjoyed the book, I can't say it's the best choice for the purpose. The stories are bizarre and they do not even try to have any logic or explanations in them. It is very like a child's narrative of "this happened and than that happened" and I mostly have dropped the book because of this, but I had nothing other to read or do at the moment and after I managed to get through
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the first, say, twenty pages, I got used to it and it even started to seem charming in its own way. I suppose, that it is kinda the author's style. It also makes all the sad twists so unexpected. In the afterword the author says she considers that all the stories have a happy ending, but, let's say, it's a debatable opinion.
The four stories are ever-so-slightly connected, but can be read separately. I recommend the second and the last stories the most. In the second story, where nothing fantastic happens apart from one of main characters deсlaring she is able to speak to concrete, the author's naive storytelling highlights all the sad moments and makes story somehow far more deep than if told more seriously. I hope that the author considers writing more stories like this one.
The art is fine, but just... normal. Nothing special about it.
This book reminded me very much of a compilation of short stories "A Perfect Day for Kangaroos" by Haruki Murakami, which was my first insight in Japanese literature some 13 years ago. It has the same absurd and fairy-tale-like storytelling style, so I felt nostalgic.
Overall, a nice book, if you can stand the style.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 4, 2014
I have just come from the cinema and the one thing I really have to say: it's beautiful!
I am really happy, that I have seen it on a big screen. I was so impressed, that i didn't finish my popcorn! I didn't make to the middle, even!
I don't know how historically precise the storyline is, and I believe that not very. But it doesn't matter, because it's charming and tragic and heartwarming. It is story about magic of dreams, that a talented person makes to come true, but it also tells us of great love, and though I detest love stories generally, this one is
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true kind - makes you weep and giggle and then weep some more.
Art is as good as ever, may be better even. There are lots of meadows in this story and also lots of sky, and both were really, really greatly done.
As for sound I can't tell much, our voice actors made the main hero sound like a robot.
Characters are best I ever seen in Ghibly animations. They manage to stay enchanting and truly kind, although they all are adults and live in no wonderland. The magic of their dream transform them into angellike creatures with wondering eyes and open hearts, living in despairless, hopeful world. Even if you start disliking anyone of them, you end up loving him or her. Everyone is so alive, so captivating you feel that you want them to be your friends. Or like they already are your friends.
I believe that finally Miyazaki managed to create a story for everyone telling everything he wanted to tell - about magic of your dreams, about love, friendship, teamplay, about living with your sorrow, about people being good, about how it is marvellous to live.
And the best thing about this story is that though it's said to be the last of Miyazaki creations you don't feel unhappy, on the contrary it gives you a happy feeling of the world being marvellous even if you lose something and having bunch of friends, all and new and the best of them is Miyazaki.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 7, 2010
I rarely enjoy all that school stories. But surprisingly after reading four chapters translated into Russian I surfed the Internet for more of "Beauty Pop".
What I mostly like about this manga?
Story. Art. Kiri. Reverse harem.
Story is great. It has much more unexpectable twists than you think a story about hairstiling can have.
Art is very nice. It looks simple but it's just what you need to both enjoy cuteness and not stare at each picture till you forget what you are reading.
Kiri is drawn amazingly. Her smiling face is so cute! And what I also liked about her is that she is often sleepy
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and pretends she doesn't care, though she does, really. And she is very kind to help all that people.
And reverse harem is enjoyable too. In fact I think "Beauty Pop" is kind of "Ouran High School Host Club"(which I also love) clone. Only main heroine is MUCH better. And that childish guy has no Bun-Bun x) So don't be amazed if while reading you cry out smth like "Tamaki! What Are you doing here?"
This is manga about hairstylists. And at first I was a bit nervous. In fact I'm afraid of ones x) You see, there is hairstyling department in where I study and guys from there always try to catch me for their trainings cause I've long hair. But after I've read "Beauty Pop" I realised that they are not so bad (which doesn't mean I'll let them cut my hair short)
So I strongly recommend you "Beauty pop" if you are afraid of hairstylists. Or if you are "Host Club fan". Or if you just want to have some fun.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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