I was really moved by this manga. It was published the late 1980s, when Japan was enjoying a boom economy. Up until the early 1990s it looked to most of us in the USA like Japan was going to permanently outdo us as practitioners of world-wide capitalism. Then the mountain of debt that had built up in the Japanese economy turned out to be unsustainable, and their economy contracted throughout the 1990s.

In this manga, Okazaki focuses on the interrelated lives of a couple of unimportant everyday people living somewhere pretty far down the hierarchy of that boom economy. They are young, likable, and eager to share in the general prosperity, but it soon becomes clear that they don't have any idea what to do with themselves to have a viable future within it. More importantly for us readers, as depicted in the manga the woman and man are believable, funny, likable people. I rooted for them throughout the story, and even wished them well for life after the story ended. This quirky slice-of-life tale is that involving! Or more likely I liked these characters much because they reminded me of my own youth. Most everyone probably goes through a period of cluelessness like this in their 20s, and in a society as complex and demanding as hypercapitalist Japan was then (and still is), I think for some people these periods never end.

This manga is highly recommended as a clear depiction of the "searching" phase of life that is the early '20s. Everyone is either in that phase, has it before them, or has vivid memories of it. I think for that reason almost anyone could enjoy this story.

... Last updated on July 17th, 2014, 8:26am