Ane no Tomurai

[MangaDex]

 

[ThePaulBunyanTrophy]

I'm about 10 pages into 44 page spread. Will be done in a day or two. It obviously deals with a sensitive topic.

edit: Done and will be up in a couple of days.

 

[ohguy]

Thanks for the translation.

It's a well done story with heartfelt dialogue, but ultimately not that special of a work. Just my honest opinion.

 

[ThePaulBunyanTrophy]

@ohguy

I get what you mean. The theme is old, and even cliched, and only because it's set against a background that most of us are unfamiliar with, the Obon and the Lantern Festival, it looks more than what it is.

But it is also timeless, and while some of us will see it as tired and repeated, there will always be people for whom it will be fresh and new, because not all of us have the same kind of experience, in breadth or depth, at the time of the reading. So I think it's a worthwhile read. I had an emotional response to it while doing it as I had with My Broken Mariko.

Also, this being a new work from a new mangaka, I grade it on a curve too. I think we can expect great things from her in the future.

 

[narunatsu1]

pretty nice for a oneshot. The delivery and stuff was nice, and this was overall a nice, short read. The idea's been done a hundred times before, but the execution here is good, so no points off for that. Let's see what the author does in the future.

 

[feel2death]

Reading this while listening mf blue by Catherine feeny ... The feels

 

[4V29LN0n]

So many words. It'd work better with better art and less dialogue/narration. Just my opinion.

 

[Dreamlikefragments]

Man........................

 

[TheFatCatCompany]

Pain

 

[agustD]

Is this loss

 

[saeka]

Kinda nahhhhh. The plot twist are obvious and it's something been done over and over. I feel nothing reading this.

 

[Novis]

Having experienced loss, I feel like this hits on a whole different level. Liked it a lot and made me tear up.

 

[SonOfTheSea]

Well... this is tragic indeed... You can't really feel at peace with it. Life just feels so unfair sometimes but you have no choice to accept it. It's not like you want to accept it but you just have to...

 

[Kiruzu]

Didn't read the tags but whew this was heavy.

 

[Roiisu]

What a fine one shot.

 

[Rudwik]

considering I just lost my father, this hit me hard. Good read

 

[comedyxtragedy]

I just wake up and I'm crying 😭

 

[Hiightop]

I'M NOT CRYING YOU ARE

 

[ThePaulBunyanTrophy]

Since this came up a few times, let me just tell everyone that this oneshot has no twist. Not one. And I'm not saying this because it was badly done or too obvious. There was no plot twist planned from the beginning. No halfway intelligent Japanese reader would have been surprised by the "reveal" that the sister was dead. That wasn't the point of this. The first big clue was the firefly, which has a significance in Japanese folktale. Perhaps you've heard of the anime, Grave of the Fireflies. The firefly leading Yousuke to the sister was the first big clue. In fact, too obvious to be called merely a clue. And right after that, the sister (and the readers) see the floating lanterns and realizes what day it is. So it's established right from the beginning that she's dead. And if you predicted that "twist," pat yourself in the back for being sharp enough to see that water is indeed wet.

This is instead a narrative about what changes and what does not, and how that affects and allows us to hang on and then let go. In that, the author does as very good job of presenting foreshadowing and blending flashbacks while keeping the story tight enough for us to wonder whether the brother is actually seeing a ghost or he's simply hallucinating or imagining. And then the author wraps it up with the final epiphany that allows the boy to confront reality being the same as the one the sister had earlier. That's good storytelling.

I'll give you that the theme is old and common. But that's just another way of saying that it's timeless, and you can still weave a great story with it. It's much better than bungling a fresh, new idea into something trite and empty.


edit:

@BraveDude8.
Don't fuck with my post without even talking to me.

 

[mdalmas]