MISC. MANGA, *The One I Love

I’ll admit that I am a real sucker for anthology books. I think if someone is able to convey an entire novels worth of plot into a 20+ page story, then their storytelling skills are particularly impressive. Plus, there are incredibly few manga graphic novels(that really come from Japan). So, I’d very much recommend this particular anthology, which was put together by none other than CLAMP. It’s actually by half of the manga-ka quartet, written by Tsubaki(formally “Mick”)Nekoi, and drawn by Nanase Ohkawa. It consists of a series of essays written by Nekoi about romantic relationships she has had and being a female in love, as well as the lives of some of her friends and coworkers. The rest of it is short comic stories illustrating the points of each essay.

Each one of these twelve stories are only about 12 pages long, but all are memorable. We start with the only color entry in Different where a girl frets over wearing a kimono when meeting up with her boyfriend, who turns out to dress up on his own for her. Cute helps define between a young couple finds as being cute, even manhole covers. I Miss You shows the problems facing a manga-ka trying to carry on a relationship. Insecue has a girl being paranoid about her lover dumping her when she can’t get in their apartment. Courage is a sweet short about the Japanese tradition of girls giving chocolate on Valentines. Normal is one of the best as it has a woman realize the little things that would make her want to get married.

This is a sweet little one-shot collection, and really stands out amoung CLAMP’s library of manga titles. It would be nice for them to do more like this, even though Snow Goddess Tales and Miyuki-chan In Wonderland are also worth looking into for some of their other anthologies.