Koizora: A Sad Love Story is a romance manga based on a digitally released novel written by the enigmatic Mika. The manga adaptation was done by Ibuki Haneda. The events of the story are supposed to be either autobiographical or biographical. In the end it is really unknown how much of the story is based on real events. The manga was released in Japan between 2007 and 2009.
Mika Tahara is a
first year high school student who is self conscious about her looks and yearns
for nothing more than to experience love and grow into an adult. She ends up getting the unwanted attention of
a flashy boy by the name of Nozomu who Mika’s new/best friend Aya has a crush
on. Over the summer break Nozomu
drunkenly calls Mika to talk but his friend Hiroki Sakurai takes the phone and
apologizes to Mika. Uncertain as to why,
Mika finds that she can trust and confide in the voice on the other end of the
phone. This first encounter turns into a
continuing phone based relationship where Mika and Hiro open their hearts to
each other. The return to school means
the two will meet each other in person for the first time. Mika is surprised and concerned that the
person she feels so comfortable with is a boy in her grade who has the
reputation of a delinquent and gang member.
Hiro sensing her unease persuades her that it’s really him and that she
can trust him. Soon after they begin
dating but Hiro’s ex-girl friend exacts revenge on Mika. Her life starts down a long and painful
spiral of misery and sadness as she tries to search for happiness.
As the subtitle suggests this is a sad love
story. I find it would be impossible for
anyone to read through the last few chapters without getting choked up. I tend to enjoy series with depressing
stories over happy go lucky ones because I feel these are more grounded in
reality. Whether or not all of the
events in this story are true, it is based in reality. People do live and die through similar experiences. If the events are true and are based on the
experiences of one person, perhaps not the timing of them or every last detail
as laid down in the manga, my heart goes out that person for how much they have
suffered. This is a sobering tale of the
dangers people face in life and the act of growing as a person. While I normally moan about how most
anime/manga gloss over hard reality this story grabs it by the balls and doesn’t
let go. It faces head on subjects like
rape, drug abuse, suicide, abortion and the fragility of life. At times it did get a little too religious
for me, but that’s just the godless atheist in me. It felt a little preachy to me at some points
but I got over that. The story is fascinating,
painful to read and worth doing so. It follows about six years of Mika's life, sometimes skipping large sections of time and other times focusing on day to day incidents. The story really seems to be split between Mik'as time in high school and her time in College, both parts consuming about the same amount of the story. The
weak point of the manga is the art, no disrespect to the manga-ka but her style
isn’t to my liking. It actually reminded
me slightly of a cross between Ai Yazawa (NANA) and Yumi Unita (Usagi
Drop). Not a lot of detail in many of
the panels, some of which only contain a character and a white background. But, in many ways the stark and simplistic
style presented by the manga-ka flowed with the feel of the story. You can tell she put her entire heart into
retelling this tale.
This is a very dramatic
and sad story, it’s not for everyone. I
think that fans of series like NANA and Usagi Drop (especially the 2nd
half of that story) would read this manga.
The novels were incredibly popular in Japan when they came out in
2005. Soon after a movie and a 6 episode
TV drama were released to mass approval.
Nothing for the story is commercially licensed in North America though. While this was an incredibly popular story I don’t
think it will ever be animated. That
would have happened by now if it was ever seriously considered. There is also no word on any format of the
story being released in North America.
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