Hisaya Nakajo (1973–2023)

The nineteenth volume wraps up the competition storyline, as we see all three high jumpers familiar to the reader - Izumi, Kagurazaka, and Shin - take their jumps and compete for first place. Izumi Sano wins, as Ashiya had no doubt he would. The boys of Dorm 2 celebrate with a drinking party, even though Sano is uninterested and doesn't participate, and he was one of the few invited to the tournament. These events happen early in the volume, and the rest of the book settles into a slow pace, show more with a lot of character interaction and dialogue, but not much action. Ashiya is dismayed that she doesn't know what to do with her future while everyone else seems so assured. Sekime is struggling to decide whether to follow his heart and keep at the long distance races, or listen to his coach and switch to hurdles. Also, his relationship with Rie is further developed. Dr. Umeda continues to avoid Akiha and offer advice to Ashiya while cynically watching her developing relationship with Sano. (One of the best scenes in this volume is where Ashiya explains to Umeda what happened when Kayashima spent the night and she and Sano shared a bed. Umeda finally understands why Sano staggered in exhausted earlier that day. His reaction of uncontrollable laughter at Ashiya's naivete, and the way he cheekily tells her the truth when she asks him why Sano was so weird and she can't accept it, is just priceless.) Towards the end of the volume Nakatsu's mom pays a visit, and awes the reader with her aggressive and gaudy personality. At first, her appearance feels like another amusing but small anecdote. However, the last scene of this collection reveals that she has a deeper purpose: she asks Nakatsu if he has made up his mind to return home or not. The cliff-hanger ending suggests that the next volume should hold more tension than this one, or at least a nice amount of character development for Nakatsu. I always enjoy reading about the beloved characters in this series, and the humor and dialogue were engaging, but I look forward to more narrative force in upcoming volumes. show less

On my latest visit my local library's Asian Center, I discovered almost a complete set of Hana-Kimi on the sale table (in fact, every volume save for number 18) for a quarter a volume. I remembered, distantly, hearing positive things about the series and, after brief wavering about the missing volume knowing how hard it can be to obtain out-of-print manga, decided I simply couldn't pass it up at that price.

After reading this first volume, I'm glad I took the chance. The situation is show more contrived, within the conventions of shoujo manga: Japanese-American student Mizuki Ashiya returns to Japan by herself to go to high school with her idol, high-jumper Izumi Sano. The catch? The school is an all-boys school, so Mizuki is disguising herself as a boy- oh, and not only is Sano in her class, he's also her roommate.

Mild spoilers follow.

The characters are well-rounded and likeable, both major and minor. They aren't overly angsty (beyond what I expect for teenagers) or, worse, stupid. There aren't the all-too-common communication breakdown incidents- for example, Mizuki sees Sano talking to a girl. Naturally, she wonders if the girl is Sano's girlfriend- but after a complete failure of eavesdropping, she actually asks about it, rather than seething and angsting about some imagined betrayal.

Where the story really shines to me is in its treatment of the central girl-disguised-as-a-boy theme (which I admit, is a theme I'm quite fond of!) and the consequences thereof. There is, so far, a pleasantly refreshing lack of homophobia and heteronormativity (ie characters concluding "I'm a guy, I'm interested in this guy- obviously he's a woman in disguise!" and being completely, author-endorsed, right) on the author's part.

Sano catches Mizuki when she passes out early in the story and figures out she's a girl- which is then definitively confirmed for him in the next chapter. This isn't hidden from the reader for some dramatic reveal later on. We see Sano reflecting on this knowledge and being uncomfortable with it, not immediately falling in love or lust with her over it- he's not completely indifferent of course, but there are other issues in his life that he's dealing with that take precedence to him.

The other person to figure out Mizuki is the school doctor, but rather than being the stereotypical flat shoujo villain, a creep who feels her up, he's gay ("Please, no homophobia, hmm?") and picked up from gender cues on the fact that Mizuki's not exactly a normal boy. He admits that he knows about unrequited love and won't interfere, and in fact the author seems to maybe be setting him up as something of a confidant for Mizuki (though he's a bit exasperated about that).

The final piece is Nakatsu, an outgoing and overly melodramatic classmate of Mizuki and Sano. He's attracted to Mizuki. Rather than the trite "somehow he knew X wasn't a normal boy" or concluding "obviously I'm completely, so she must be a woman!" (which I have, unfortunately, seen- more in novels than in manga), he's conflicted- and then, when coming to Mizuki's defense, decides "So what if it does make me gay? I don't care!" I'm sure this is the start of a love triangle, but both Sano and Nakatsu are interesting enough that I don't think I mind.

This is a promising first volume. It's not perfect- there are sometimes awkward transitions between scenes (I'm thinking especially of pages 31-32, it took me a couple of reads to figure out what exactly was going on), but the art is decent and the characters raise the story above the typical shoujo contrived situation. I'm docking half a star for these minor glitches.

The other half is coming off for the unrelated short story "The Cage of Summer". This story takes up about a fifth of this volume, which didn't resonate with me at all. More spoilers: a distant cousin comes to stay, she finds out he's a playboy who goes to clubs and sleeps around and is a jerk to her, protagonist hates him, then after cornering her when they're alone together in the family house he says she's his first love, she realizes her hate for him is actually love, and they have sex.

Yes, "what??" The "I hate you, you're a jerk, but even though I don't know it myself I love you" plot is one of my very least favorites, but I'm keeping it to half-a-star off since it's unrelated to the main story.

I'm going to try to pace myself to a volume a week with the series to make it last- I'm looking forward to it. show less

Love, love, love this volume! The Valentine story was introduced in the last volume, but focused on Nakao and Nanba. In this continuation, we see Ashiya overcome her doubts and present Sano with chocolates. He sees through her feeble explanations, and demands to know if he can take the present the way he wants to. She pretends confusion, and we have a fun interlude where most of the gang goes bowling. Back in the daily routine, Ashiya still refuses to accept his meaning, so Sano finally show more comes right out and tells her he loves her. Eek! The illustrations are striking and the story is incredibly romantic at this point. Ashiya, true to her nature, is flustered and avoids Sano. She is ecstatic that he loves her, but thinks Sano sees her as a boy, and is afraid he will hate her when he discovers she's a girl. Sano is tired of playing safe. He confronts her again, and demands outright what her feelings are for him. Ashiya finally tells Sano she loves him as well, and they kiss. They kiss! A second awesome fan girl moment in one volume. I know the series has two more volumes left, and the big "Ashiya is a girl" reveal is going to close everything out, but for me, this volume is the culmination of the series. After all, at the core of everything is the romance between Ashiya and Sano. The reason Ashiya pretended to be a boy to join Osaka, met all of her awesome friends, and had her entertaining adventures was simply because she wanted to meet Sano. I am sure I will enjoy the ending of the series, because I like all of the side characters and this world. However, none of the volumes in the series, before or after, will surpass the fun romantic wonderfulness of this particular part of the story. show less

Although not a lot of action happens in this volume, I enjoyed it greatly, because the character interactions were incredible. The story begins with Ashiya's excitement over Sano sucking her hand for blood (Why is this a form of intimacy in manga, and why do I find it strangely romantic?) but soon moves into the next story arc - the track meet and greet. Various high schools from the same region are bringing their running and high jumping athletes together to socialize and participate in show more friendly competitions. Of course, Sano and Kagurazaka are there, but so is Shin, Sano's little brother. Ashiya and Nakatsu sneak in, and then Kagurazaka just invites them in anyway. With that line up, you know that the dialogue will be fun and engrossing, and it is. Kagurazaka is giving Sano a hard time, as usual, and shares the arrogant hostility with Shin, who responds in the same stubborn way as his brother, but with more temper. Shin doesn't know, as the others do, that beneath his cocky attitude, Kagurazaka is a great athlete who admires and even cares for those he harrases. Sano and Shin are still having serious communication problems, and Ashiya remains her adoringly naive and bumbling self. Meanwhile, Nakatsu interferes and overreacts to everything. Watching these characters together was wonderful and had me racing through the pages. We also get to see Kagurazaka and Shin jump for the first time, with beautiful fan-service art and drama. Just when Sano and Shin are making tentative steps to friendly ground, Sano finds out that Shin's coach is their father, and they have another argument. Sano knows he was out of line, and Ashiya convinces him to go talk to his brother. When he arrives to apologize, though, he meets the last person he wants to see. His father. This collection developed a lot of the characters I love, brought Shin back which is always a good thing, did a nice job of increasing the emotional tension, and ended on a suspenseful note. A solid entry in the series that left me wanting more. show less