Garota à Beira-Mar

うみべの女の子 [Umibe no Onnanoko] #1-2

by Inio Asano

O lado marginal da sociedade que o mundo ignora é visitado de forma visceral por Inio Asano, o premiado autor de Boa Noite Punpun, Dead Dead Demons DeDeDeDe Destruction e Decadência. Em Garota à Beira-mar, como preencher o vazio que surge na alma enquanto não se encontra o caminho que o destino apontará para seguir pela vida é o principal tema abordado por Asano. Sexo, violência, drogas e sonhos surgem como possíveis respostas. Viver, por si só, é dolorido e, ao mesmo tempo, toda decisão tem suas consequências.

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Comics, Romance, Fiction, Seinen, Coming Of Age

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 19, 2016

About the author

Inio Asano (浅野いにお, Asano Inio) is a Japanese cartoonist. He is known for his character-driven stories and his detailed art-style, making him one of the most influential manga author of his generation.
Asano was born in 1980 and produced his first amateur comics as a teenager. His professional debut happened in 2000 in the pages of the magazine Big Comic Spirits. Since then, he has collaborated with most of the major Japanese magazines of seinen manga (comics for a mature audience). Among Asano's internationally acclaimed works are: the psychological horror Nijigahara Holograph (2003-2005); the drama Solanin (2005-2006); the existentialistic slice-of-life Goodnight Punpun (2007-2013); the erotic A Girl on the Shore (2009-2013); the sci-fi Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction (2014-2022).

Reviews

[Seth T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Both elbows on the table, I covered my face with my palms. Inside the darkness, I saw rain falling on the sea. Rain softly falling on a vast sea, with no one there to see it. The rain strikes the surface of the sea, yet even the fish don't know it's raining. Until someone came and lightly rested a hand on my shoulder, my thoughts were of the sea" (from South of the Border, West of the Sun).

While better known for his epic, bizarre excursions into real-but-magical worlds of talking animals, dreams that infect the day, and empty-shelled men and women who might never be whole again, it's often in Haruki Murakami's quieter works that I find his best expression. For a long time The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was my favourite of his bibliography. It may still be—that's a hard thing to decide. But after reading about ten of his works, I came across South of the Border, West of the Sun, and I was floored. I had understandably grown accustomed to his writing, his themes, his tics. I was still appreciative of his work but no longer excited. Everything felt familiar.

But with South of the Border, I felt as if I were reading the best distillation of the map he wanted to leave us to find entrance to his world. It's a terse work. 213 pages. Nothing like the 600+ page works that mark the usually noted high points of his collection (Wind-Up Bird, Kafka on the Shore, and 1Q84). South of the Border is mundane by Murakami's standard, a love story and a story of love sustained in absence. It's a story with pockets of frank eroticism—in place much less to titillate than to unveil character and purpose. And then, at the end of the day, South of the Border, West of the Sun's love story is not actually even the point, and instead we find we've been present for a coming of age story that is stretched across four decades. Through an evocative coda, life-bringing rain cleanses in the midst of a psychological turmoil and peace settles through the mundane act of simple human contact. A winding, fraught journey of fumbling and longing ends in a simple realization, unstated and understated.



When I read the American press for Inio Asano's A Girl on the Shore, I was thrilled to find that the book was apparently inspired directly by Asano's experience with Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. That is an invocation brimming with mystery, for Kafka is almost certainly the strangest of Murakami's works. It was the first Murakami I ever read and spurred my reader's imagination in new ways—I had never encountered anything of the like. However, I've poked around and haven't been able to find any corroboration for the cited inspiration. Googling in English only returns references back to the original press release. A friend who lived in Japan until she was 25 or so searched that corner of the internet for me and after forty-five minutes (an admittedly brief dive into the web) could only uncover piles of people discussing how very like a Murakami novel Asano's book is. Still, whether A Girl On The Shore is actually inspired by Murakami or not, it's certainly very plausible. Interestingly, the book only holds a glancing likeness to Kafka on the Shore and seems much closer paired with South of the Border, West of the Sun.

A Girl on the Shore opens with an awkward post-coital walk along the shore of a somnambulant little town in which two ninth graders discuss whether to forge a romantic relationship out of what the girl viewed as a virginity-losing one-afternoon stand. The girl, Sato, wanted a bit of sex in order to feel something, to rage against the way another boy (the one she pines for) abuses her and is dismissive to her. She instinctively reaches out for a measure of control and convinces Isobe, who's long been attracted to her, to put a little sugar in her bowl (to euphemistically borrow from Nina Simone). She knows he will, and so she takes advantage of that attraction. She's still unfilled, but she's awakened a curiosity and a need.


[Misaki is a fantastic choice to have a crush on]

All of this happens before page 1, and Asano allows us to join them in media res as Isobe asks Sato if she wants to be his girlfriend. But she doesn't think of him like that and cannot be involved with him romantically while she is hoping against hope that Misaki, the cad of her dreams, will finally return her affections. It takes a couple days, but Isobe and Sato iron out a kind of rhythm in which they engage in frequent, escalating, no-strings-attached sexual exploration. The trick of course, as every story ever has taught us, is that we can't always see the strings that guide us, bind us, and draw us. Especially not when our eyes are glued tight in orgasmic ecstasy.



Things play out as they will as the kids head toward graduation and on to high school,1 1]Remember that what is the first year of high school in the US is last year of junior high in Japan.]] and everyone discovers that the things they believed so deeply and strongly were most likely only their eager imaginations, fueling and burning in engines of youthful madness and indiscretion. There's a certain profane beauty and chaos to it all. In some ways it reflects the common boy-girl experience and in other ways is horrifyingly unique. There is nothing healthy being explored, but the whole experiment was never about health. It was about overcoming alienation and extorting life into healing without bandaids or antiseptic.
_____

One of the marks of Murakami's fiction is his very dry, almost lifeless descriptions of sex. Those unfamiliar with his style and its use might mistake his sex scenes for clumsy because if there is one thing they are not, it's sexy. They are descriptive, spare, and get the point of the encounter across without making the scene lurid. Here's a sample from Kafka on the Shore.


[from Murakami's kafka on the shore]

The point of Murakami's sex scenes is either a) to convey human proximity and establish the intricacy of the social realm through non-expository means; or b) to investigate an abstract through the concrete act of the sexual encounter. I'd say that sex in Murakami is sometimes probably just sex, but I can't actually think of any candidates from his books where that would be the case.

In A Girl on the Shore, Asano's fashioned a curious work in that it conveys with a certain coy frankness a relationship that many of us are uncomfortable seeing depicted. Asano skirts around Japanese censor restrictions by drawing Isobe's penis as an outline admitting no detail and by indicating penetration through artful use of negative space. Despite his restrictions, one feels the cartoonist's lens has not blushed away from the activities depicted at all. And yet, because these scenes are not in place to titillate22]Though they may very well enflame the prurient interest quite as well as had that been their sole purpose.]], the scenes are not gratuitous. Like Murakami, Asano has installed these episodes to an end—in his case, to investigate an abstract through the means of establishing character proximity.



Sato and Isobe begin with plain vanilla sexual exploration. Isobe's clearly done this before, but apart from a blow job she gave to Misaki (only given in hopes that he would ask her to be his girlfriend), Sato begins the story as a virgin. As their encounters increase in frequency, there begins a sort of staleness. At one point Isobe has his head installed under Sato's skirt to stimulate her orally, but Sato just browses photos on a camera, bored by the whole endeavor. Still, while motivated in entirely different ways, they are fueled by a relentless hunger for sexual expression apart from love (though in fairness Isobe begins by hoping their sex will lead to something more). They, in this way reflect an episode from South of the Border, West of the Sun, in which the narrator Hajime describes his relentless sexual relationship with his girlfriend's cousin:


[from Murakami's South of the border, west of the sun]

That passion is essential to the story being told and were this a more moralistic fable, we'd see it devour them. By the end, their sex gets more and more exploratory and almost entirely compulsory, but if there's going to be a destruction of what they have, it's not going to be the sex that does them in. Rather, the sex is merely symptomatic of larger struggles, of grander more encompassing needs. Needs that are at odds with each other's.
_____

Asano's illustrations are better than ever and surpass anything yet seen in his US-adapted works (What a Wonderful World, Solanin, and Nijigahara Holographic). His character work is detailed and lively and he conveys expression wonderfully. I'm not sure the exact technique used to derive his backgrounds (they appear to be some sort of high-contrast scan of reference photos blended with honest illustration),3 but whatever the method, Asano composes some lovely scenes and really only on the final page of the book does a character feel pasted in atop a stage set.



I also feel his writing's stronger here than the rest of his revealed oeuvre, but that may be because the last of his works I read was Nijigahara Holographic, which was kind of a shambles. (I barely remember Solanin at all, actually, as it's been about seven or eight years since I last read it.) In any case, the dialogue worked fine and the evolution of events and characters built well toward the book's conclusion.

There is—for me—always a fairly strong element of disbelief suspension that necessarily goes along with most stories of sexual flamboyance. Ignoring for a minute the fact that when I was fifteen, I was struggling to tell the girl I liked that I liked her. Nevermind that I wouldn't have ever considered shoving my hand down her pants to finger her. Forget all that. Certainly there are kids whose self-expression along these lines appears far more confident than anything I could have mustered. But what really baffles me is the sheer endurance and prowess of these characters. Teenaged Garcia Madero from Roberto Bolaño's Savage Detectives has what seems like hours of wild, mind-expanding sex with an architect's poet-daughter one night. He climaxes and immediately goes in for seconds. Thirds. Fourths. It's mythical and legendary and epic and I can't begin to imagine. At that age, I likely would have blown my top in minutes and been done in for hours. Similar to poet Garcia Madero, fifteen-year-old Isobe is a juggernaught in the sack. He'll masturbate, then have vigourous sex, then get a blow job. All in the space of a couple lazy hours. Maybe that's entirely possible and even normal and I'm just revealing some previously unknown inadequacy of my own, but when stuff like that happens it seems so far from plausible that I can't figure out how writers keep writing these scenes.

Also, I get phantom soreness just thinking about it. 'Cuz, man, that would honestly get pretty raw.
_____

As with an earlier work, Solanin, Asano here bookends his story with some thematic text. After a brief prologue, he presents a black page with seven short sentences that will remain suitably vague until the book's conclusion, where they are repeated in dialogue that will lead directly into coda and resolution, which carries similar function to that bit of South of the Border that I quoted at the beginning of this review.



While one could be forgiven for thinking A Girl on the Shore is about a very young man and a very young woman having sex, a more legitimate back-of-book description would involve some attempt to express the characters' efforts to find what they're looking for, even while they have no real idea what they're looking for. Love. Solace. A good bone. Meaning. Purpose. Catharsis. Control. Freedom. A reason not to float away into nothingness. A Girl on the Shore is predicated on the idea of finding things unsought. In their evolution from children to adults, Sato and Isobe will see their heavens rolled back as a scroll and epiphanies will rain down on them in the most mundane and everyday sorts of ways. But that happens to us all. The only remaining question then is what these two will do with their own unique revelations.
_______

[Review courtesy of Good Ok Bad.]
_______

Footnotes
1) Remember that what is the first year of high school in the US is last year of junior high in Japan.

2) Though they may very well enflame the prurient interest quite as well as had that been their sole purpose.

3) UPDATE: Since posting, German reader Karsten has pointed me to this wonderful episode of Naoki Urusawa's mangaka interview series, featuring Asano and his illustration technique.

[Sanaa · Rating 2 out of 5]

[2.5 Stars] This is an odd one for me. I liked where this story was going and how it explored the different characters relationships, problems, yearnings, and sexual experiences. HOWEVER, those explorations were too few and too scattered amidst pages and pages of illustrated male genitalia and sex, sex, sex, sex. Hey, I'm fine with graphic content, but do I really want to see a penis every other page drawn multiple times? No, not really.

It's a shame though because this manga was almost there, seriously, almost wonderful, but then it really wasn't. The artwork is also heartbreakingly beautiful. Sigh. If only there had been a little more development of the characters as opposed to graphic content. I feel like a 50/50 split would have made this manga infinitely better as opposed to the 70/30 split. As it stands now, the 30% of story we did get just felt a bit lacking. I felt like the characters didn't really move forward or tackle their problems. May be the manga is trying to say that life is just one thing after the next and you just move through it and the end. If that is the case I guess it's fine and all, but I wanted something a bit more. This had the capacity and bare bones to deliver, and it just didn't.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

So now I have read four works by manga-ka Inio Asano: Goodnight Punpun, a sweet and strange coming of age story featuring Punpun, a weird ghost-like creature: Solanin, a more realistic rendering of a man in his twenties trying to adapt to life post college, and his masterpiece of trauma, Nijigahara Holograph, which I particularly loved because it was so over the edge, though I confess I didn’t fully understand it. Anyway, Asano clearly isn’t trying to repeat himself, though in general he is known for character-driven, realistic stories that range from slice of life to psychological horror.

In a Girl by the Shore we already see in the title there is romance. But that is somewhat misleading, because it is more about sex than romance, really. The story focuses on the teen relationship between Isobe and Sato, which moves from (just) friendship to sexual exploration. Since some of the sexual scenes are quite specifically depicted I began to wonder who the audience might be for Asano, but the point is not titillation here, it is exploration, and relationship, and confusion about what sexuality might mean for a young person.

Sato seems to be interested in (or driven by an earlier sexual experience with, at least) a guy everyone is interested in, Misaki, but she ends up spending most of her time instead with Isobe. And as I said, this manga does feature explicit sexual scenes, but the scenes are not gratuitous, in my opinion. This beautiful book seems to be mainly about young teens searching for something, wondering if what they are searching for is in each other’s bodies. I guess the point really is about the all-important place of sexuality in developing identity, a process of discovery and confusion that never really ends for most of us. The focus here seems to be primarily on the girl in the story, Sato, and her experience of this aspect of growing up. The art is terrific, as good as anything he has done, promoting reflection.

The best review of this book is from Seth, who reveals that the inspiration for this book for Asano might have been Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[James DeSantis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teenage years suck. Why? Because you're going through so many emotions, and so many thoughts are flying through your head, and on top of it all a lot of the times sexually motivated or frustrated. Author Inio Asano decides to cleverly depict teenage life through depression, loss, sex, and more.

Now the big thing here before jumping into this is understanding it's pretty raw. In the sense that these kids heavily talk about death, suicide, and of course there's a ton of sexual moments. I'm talking full on blowjobs, fucking, and so on. So if you are uncomfortable seeing teenagers depicted in such a way this might not be for you. I'm pretty lax on it all and even I was kind of shocked at moments, but more so with the outlook on death/depression instead of the sexual acts of teenagers. Why? Because teenagers like sex as much as adults usually. So no shock there really.

Now on to the story. This focuses on Koume and Keisuk. Koume is shown to be a girl who was rejected by the person she originally had a crush on after a sexual act. She then moves on with Keisuk, who is a depressed boy who just decides he wants sex. So Koume and Keisuk begin their sexual adventure together. Which is mostly just pure sex, at home, at school, wherever and whenever.

But see this all has a purpose. The sex is to shield them away from the pain they're both going through. Koume seems lost in life, unsure of what she wants, and maybe even a bit ashamed of it. Where's keisuk story is deeper, and a lot darker, especially when find out what happened to his brother. Together they basically are two miserable people and they clearly show a distaste towards each other at points that mirrors depression and anger.

What I found so interesting was how real the dialogue felt. Instead of typical romance/drama stories where they end in huge fights or get together, this ended extremely normal. Without spoilers, there's no happy ending, but it's not a sad one either. It's kind of just "normal" and that is what makes it special in a way.

I can probably keep blabbing on and on about this one because the more I thought about it the more it stuck with me. The feeling of loss and wanting to die is something I think everyone at one point goes through and can relate. I think this book shows it in the most honest and truthful way. I think the sexual acts might be tough on some due to the ages of these teens, but I think it was done in a way to show how hurt they both are, and how lost they really are.

If you can get through a dreary story filled with sexual moments I think you'll enjoy the more human moments here with the characters. It's not a easy read but I personally loved it. A 5 out of 5.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really don't understand this book at all. Unless I'm missing something in cultural translation, its just a boy using a girl for sex and then rejecting her when she has feelings for him. The side plot with the girl on the shore which lends the book its title is basically nothing. I was also uncomfortable with the explicitness of the sex here with minors. I know Japan has more relaxed standards about nudity, but this is full-on hardcore sex that is utterly out of sync with the jacket copy, which makes it sound like a soulful teen romance. Anyone reading it should be warned that you will see sex acts with minors in graphic detail and said sex acts will basically be pleasure-less for the girl. It's basically the old trope where a girl won't like you unless you treat her like absolute dirt. It makes the whole thing have a super gross feel since she barely feels like an active participant in the scenes where he uses her body. The whole thing is just the usual bundle of tropes with hardcore sex and if there is some kind of depth here, I can't find it.

I wish someone had told me what this book was actually about before I wasted my money.

[Rylee Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall:

Koume and Keisuke both have a void they’re trying to fill –– mostly with sex. They’re either apathetic or depressed, or shackin’ up. There’s a ton of graphic content (18+), but if you’re looking for hentai, this is definitely not it. There are themes of depression, loneliness, connection, and meaning, so.. yeah, definitely not your standard hentai material.

Spoilers!
Koume and Keisuke

Initially, Keisuke is a booty call for Koume because that’s all she’ll give him. He wants more, he thinks. But it’s not really Koume he wants. He’s depressed over his brother’s death and dealing with suicidal thoughts, and his attempts to connect with Koume are to distract from his emotions. And I think he sees himself mirrored in Koume and hopes for connection. His reach out to Koume seems like he's blindly feeling around in the dark for what he’s missing. At first it seems sweet, like maybe his feelings are genuine. But it’s fleeting, as he slowly spirals into his issues and pushes Koume away because what he’s doing with her isn’t what he’s looking for.

Koume tries to fill her void by.. well, filling her anatomical void, which of course doesn’t work. As Keisuke drifts away from her, and further into his depression, her emotional attachment to Keisuke grows. She wants to recapture the interest he initially had for her, but again, it’s like grasping at straws. She doesn’t truly know what will fill the emptiness. But it seems as he loses interest, and gets more depressed, it makes her want him more. These two are never on the same page.

The recurring elements:

Sex plays a key role in this story. There’s no satisfaction in it. They’re either going through the motions to pass time or trying to see if it’ll create the connection they’re looking for.

The sea is another recurring element. For Keisuke, the ocean reminds him of his brother’s death. Koume goes to the beach looking for the random things others have lost there. It acts as a way to connect random people. Frequently, Koume stands on the shore and just stares out into the ocean. And in the end, Koume comes to an almost delirious realization that she’s found her something bigger –– the ocean, as it’s literally bigger.

The greater meaning:

The meaning I took from it in the end is that humans are small and insignificant, and our issues always feel bigger than they are. I think that’s what Koume sees when she looks at the ocean. We’re all looking for something more. To mean something to someone else, to have shared experiences, to be understood. But like Koume’s excursions on the beach, when she’s looking for both nothing and something without a clue, it’s random happenstance that she finds something she wants –– both in life and on the beach.

In the end, I’m left feeling that Keisuke is still grasping at the next thing that will fill his emptiness, though he does seem reinvigorated as it seems he’s interpreted a random occurrence as fate. I still kind of hate him though. He’s mostly a jerk. I don’t know whether Koume has come to find what she’s looking for or if her realizations will be fleeting. And I still don’t know that I’ve gotten the intended meaning out of the story.

But mostly I’m left feeling like Eeyore. Melancholy. “We read to know we’re not alone.” In this case, reading it made me feel alone, and then gave me company in my aloneness. And yet overall, I still liked it. It’s weird. These kids are weird and depressing, and this book did not bring out my happy, and yet I keep flipping back through it trying to figure out what it all means. Much like life I suppose. But it’s all just random and open for interpretation. Maybe that’s the meaning! I don’t know. This book is giving me pseudo-epiphanies.

The intended audience:

One thing less debatable is that the art is absolutely beautiful. Specifically, the detail in the landscapes is amazing. I bought this solely because of the cover, so simply on an aesthetic ground, it wins major points.

I’d say read this if you want to wallow (sometimes I’m in a wallowing mood, maybe I’m not alone and this book was made to let me know that –– hey, maybe THAT’S the meaning!). Also great for those in the midst of an existential crisis, though it won’t provide any answers. And if you’re not in an existential crisis yet, this book may put you there.

This was definitely a thought-provoking book meant for discussion.

[chan ☆]

dnf @ chapter 3

eh... i'm not saying that comics/manga/graphic novels have to be sweet and happy for me to enjoy them. but this one seemed too bleak and depressing for my taste.

the main character is seeking sex as a form of emotional sanctuary and the the guy she chooses to do it with is not even COOL enough to be a dick. he's just lame and weird. i also found the art for the sex scenes... not sexy. which i think was the point but i did not like it. at all.

i did think the pages that were mostly scenery were pretty. a lot of this takes place by the ocean and those drawing were nice.

[KillerBunny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt like a teenager again reading this, first love, first time, all the pain and sadness. But so beautiful

[Alok · Rating 1 out of 5]

"Whether you win or lose the argument, everything totally gets ugly later. You can't work to win, you gotta work to understand your partner. If everyone stubbornly insists they're right, then no one gets to be happy."

This was a horrible read. Muddy story, unexplored plot and poorly developed characters. This has overt use of sexualization to the point it seemed more disgusting hentai than the beautiful manga I though it to be. I disagree with other people that it propels the plot forward or was important to the story in all that detail.

No. I think the plot of using sexuality as escape by the characters, "the friends with benefits" seemed immature and stupid. And when the boy had been wanting the girl to go out with him and see more depth than just sexual relation and when the girl does feels so towards the end and even expresses it, his blatant refusal seemed inconsistent. The eponymous girl on the shore was just some insignificant subplot I didn't care about. It seemed poor writing that she somehow overshadowed his partner girl. Especially all he'd seen was her photo. Overall they typically acted as immature teenagers.

There were some important ideas and themes like bullying, depression and suicide, they're left unexplored. I'd have rated it higher if some justice was done to these themes.

This all said, the drawings and some quotes were really beautiful but I decided to not rate it higher still because the rest of the aspects I found too horrible and irredeemable.

It was a bad call to read this. I should have All You Need is a Kill instead or heck even could start One Punch Man. I think that romance would never be my cup of tea. I hope someday something would change it. But nothing has so far.

[Chiyo Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck...

I initially thought this was rated as mature (18+) purely due to the extent of its sexual content.. Now don't get me wrong, there is A LOT of sex, but if you're under the impression that's the theme that's going to define the nature of this manga then brace yourself.

To this date, there has been no manga or graphic novel that has ever impacted me like this! I'm just numb... trying to process what the fuck I just read.

It's simplicity is what makes it so deep. Realistic theme after realistic theme, not sugar-coated by light-hearted comedic moments, or a witty comment from the 2D funny side character that every single manga seems compelled to have. Not this manga. Its refreshing. Real. Accurate. Legit.

Strongly recommend.

Ps. Possible triggers.

[Rory Wilding · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Sex with love is an illusion, y'know!!
"Shut up."

As these words are said to each other whilst having intercourse in the school toilets, the relationship between Koume Sato and Keisuke Isobe isn't based on a stable romance as the former is someone who cannot commit to a kiss despite the request from the latter, who has zero social skills and treats everyone poorly, including even Koume.

Depending how you feel about these mid-schoolers and the issues they are going through, you will feel initially distant from these characters who are a rather dislikeable pair who go and have various sexual activities with each other throughout the course of the manga. Author Inio Asano does not hold back on the explicit content with there are several pages devoted to the teenagers' casual sex relationship with panels featuring full frontal nudity and penetration. No doubt this is a taboo subject for some readers, but it is appropriately uncomfortable as Asano intended as a depiction of adolescent relationships.

Continuing his fascination of oncoming adolescence following his six-year-long manga Goodnight Punpun, A Girl on the Shore explores the broken individuality of teenage life as Koume feels betrayed by the local playboy Misaki, who forced her to give him a blowjob on their first date, she uses Keisuke as a rebound, whilst Keisuke's current mental state is born out of his older brother's suicide, causing him to not express any sympathy towards anyone, leading to the occasional violent outburst.

Considering that many will point to the graphic sex scenes as a form of attraction towards the book, Asano's artwork is very unflashy as the panels can go from tight closeups of a character's face to the highly detailed backgrounds showcasing the small town. There are a few double-page spreads that show a perfect marriage of character and environment, from a group of school girls carrying see-through umbrellas crossing the road under heavy rain, to the very title of the book.

It's not an easy read, but A Girl on the Shore is an honest depiction of small-town dynamics in a middle schooler's life, in particular two flawed teenagers who through a dysfunctional relationship long for something bigger.

[G_occasionally_reads (semi-hiatus cause vacay) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did I read it in one sitting? Yes. Did I like it? Meh.
Inio Asano is not for everybody. I had to put Punpun on hold cause it was too depressing, too loveless. It left me with a black hole in the heart.

The illustrations are perfect for the feeling the mangaka is trying to convey. It might be a romance manga, but there is nothing romantic about the relationship between the two MCs. The manga left me with a feeling of sadness and desolation just comparable to that of algae washing ashore after a storm ⛈️🥲

[Frédéric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two lonely and more or less depressive teenagers try desperately to try to fill up their void... having meaningless sex.

Put that way I reckon it might not sound very engaging. And be warned, the sex scenes are VERY explicit- and kinda disturbing considering the young age of the characters but maybe I’m just an old fart.
And yet this book stirred something in me. Not the sex scenes which, are pornographic as they are, are not destined to arouse the reader, but the terribly sad and depressing feeling that permeates the book. Both are lonely and looking for something but don’t know what. Isobe, on the verge of being an otaku and deeply suffering from the death of his brother, is clearly more conscious of the situation than Koume. Not that it helps him much since he’s seriously considering commiting suicide. Teenage angst at its worse.

The book is an improbable mix of crude sex scenes and a sensitive perception of the turmoil of emotions-or lack of- that is a teenager’s life. And the art is simply beautiful. Very good setting of a small beach town and hundreds of emotions in the character’s faces, particularly Koume whose fragility and sensitivity are brilliantly rendered.

Certainly not a book to put in all hands, I certainly don’t know to whom I could recommend it but probably a shock to those who’ll try it. One way or another.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy, do I have mixed feelings about this book. It's a slow-burn of a sexual coming-of-age tale about two fifteen-year-old kids in Japan. The sex is portrayed graphically, and the kids try a lot of variations including some kinky stuff. The story and art raise this work above simple pornography, but the reader is still left to struggle with the fact that these kids are fifteen and this is graphic. Have I hammered home the kids theme enough?

The story reflects teenage life quite well in that it is full of big drama that is simultaneously quite inconsequential. The journey is epic yet doesn't take you very far as the story turns on itself in a Mobius strip. The feels are more important than what actually happens.

Still, the art is great and the story builds quite well before it peters out. I just wish I wasn't left feeling a little bit yucky for having read it.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

The worst manga I have read in my entire life.
I just.... that was an experience I wish I could take back....

MY VIBE IS FEELING UNWELL IN CASE ANY OF YALL WERE WONDERING

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm new to reading manga for ages 18+, so started reading this and it's like, ohhh, I see, that's why it's 18+! It has lots of sex in it. Yep.
Also, it talks about suicide...
The plot is about a relationship between two teenagers and unrequited love and crushes and admitting you like someone. I got a bit confused with the names as they are sometimes called by the first name and sometimes by their surname - but that's because my brain is small.
The art work is absolutely gorgeous! I will definitely read more by this author and you should too (as long as you don't mind lots of drawings of penises)

[Alexander Peterhans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn slice of life. Surprisingly sexually explicit, but never in a pornographic way. Maybe a bit too angsty for my tastes.

[Miruna Caragheorgheopol · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of a chemical reaction is neither an uncanny combination of Asano's Solanin and Haruki Murakami in a flask, nor two depressed high-school teenagers thrown together in a Petri dish of sexual interactions (snickers!), but... here it is. This book. If Solanin was a book by Haruki Murakami, it would look and behave like A Girl on the Shore , and if Haruki Murakami ever wrote a manga, it would be something like this.

To start with, the drawings are wonderful, and the backgrounds are clearly something else than usual (a mixture of high-contrast photography, drawing and semi-realistic renders). The setting, a sleepy seaside town, half-dead and where nothing much happens, helps convey an eerie feeling, like it’s a story that’s set in the real world, but not quite. There is a drop of magical realism that ties the beginning and the end together, almost imperceptible if you are not careful. It’s also somewhat depressing, in the same way that watching a Romanian New-Wave film in a dark cinema with ten other scattered people would make you feel. You aren’t even spared the famous kitchen / bathroom tiles. However, just like some aforementioned movies, it is pretty good and tasty.

The loads and loads of sex depicted in this book give a disjointed impression. In those scenes, each panel, impeccably paced, is communicating a separation from the others, especially since they depict anything else but faces. The panels themselves are a mirror of the characters: they seek a connection, go ahead and ignore it when it appears, and moreover, bask in the sense of general alienation that permeates the entire book. (Truth be told, I have a new perspective on Murakami’s so-called badly written sex scenes after reading this. They might not be written that way to be laughable – though maybe the translations don’t help much either – but to convey a sense of strangeness and Unheimlichkeit).

Apart from some moments that probably belong to a different kind of manga and which were a bit jarring, I loved the slow – paced story, the variations of intensity, the psychological ramifications of apparently inscrutable actions. The two characters, perpetually in contre-temps with each other, are half-likeable, half-not (teens, d’oh!). They’re deeply entrenched inside their own minds, and you, as a reader, are half inside their heads, half outside, and maybe understand a sliver of what they actually think and do. It left me thinking and ruminating for some reason, and I really loved it.

[Ozan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Inio Asano work which i read. (I also have all the Punpun volumes) I hear from most manga readers that they don't like this Asano work... and it was short so i cheked it out, knowing how popular the Asano, what is it with this single volume short that make his regular readers don't like it...

And oh boy... Was there alot of sex scenes in this manga lol i was like oh so this is what made them did't like it, after all they are like i'm all for violance but god forbide any sex scene.... lol simpletons. This manga is beautiful, it's as slice of life as it gets and that include the ''dirty'' sex boys and girls. As i said, it's a beautiful slice of life manga about junior high kids, Isobe and Koume, they were last year at junior high and they were sex budies... lol Isobe was pretty depresed lonely avarage boy because of the suicide of his older brother because of bullying at school... Koume was an avarage junior high girl, not that cute at all lol an avarage girl... They got together at Isobe's house and had sex, alot. Isobe thought of suicide and Koume fell for him as the time pasted... And on a stormy school festival day, Isobe kind of took his brothers ravenge from some other school kids, and got some relief. Koume looked for him everywhere at storm and finally after the storm, she found him at school next day with a new ugly hair cut lol he was cheerful, that suprised Koume. Later on police came to ask for the assult on the stormy night to Isobe,(that was isobe's revenge) Isobe was like sure ask anything, and we never saw him again... Probably Police got everything from him and took him under custody. Poor boy. At the last chapter, we saw Koume with her new boy friend at last year of high school... She probably already forgot all about Isobe... It's that she lost her camera's SD card at the shore... And at the early parts of manga Isobe found an SD card on the shore, found a girl's selfies in it. So this SD card could be the same SD card, somekind of time travel phenomenan possibly,last year junior high student Isobe found Senior High school girl Koume's SD card on the shore... Interesting but that's not clear, manga didn't clearly state that both are the same SD cards. It's ambigius.

I liked this manga and looking forward to reading Goodnight Punpun.

[Katherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

"No puedo dejar de intentarlo sólo por miedo a que no funcione."

"Nunca encontraba nada de lo que quería... O quizás era que, en realidad, nunca esperaba encontrar nada."

Un historia que nos retrata la crudeza de la adolescencia, con sus cuestionamientos, inseguridades, soledad, tristezas, entre tantos otros sentimientos y pensamientos, como también vivencias que transcurren durante esta etapa desde diferentes perspectivas, pero siempre con el enfoque en sus dos protagonistas, Kuome e Isobe.

Estos jóvenes van a la misma escuela y mantienen un relación guiada por la incursión en las relaciones sexuales, con un enfoque triste, de soporte, de descargo. Es una historia en la que se van viendo luchas, tipos de familias, la red de apoyo que posee cada uno, las aspiraciones que tienen ellos como también su entorno y la relación con el suicidio, pero esto último, no tan profundamente .
Es una historia situada en esta compleja etapa de la vida, con una mirada madura y realista al mirar todo el escenario que mantiene un ritmo constante, desarrollando una trama que engancha y mantiene atento a los sucesos.

Una manga interesante y con el estilo propio al que nos tiene acostumbrados Inio Asano.

[David Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una historia bellísima y cruda sobre la adolescencia, el descubrimiento sexual, el cuestionamiento de la identidad, el forjamiento de un pasado y la melancolía que se esconde tras los instantes que vivimos cuando somos jóvenes, instantes que no volverán jamás.
Pero al final hay cosas más grandes e importantes.
¡El mar!

[Amir · Rating 3 out of 5]

walking down a road stretching out on the outskirts of town...beyond the stained early morning haze...I saw a streetcar rising from sleep to cross the ocean. And I wanted to gather up the wind, gather up the wind...and race through the blue sky, the clear, blue sky.



May The Winds Rise

[maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Girl on the Shore was a lot darker than I had anticipated, but it was a completely addicting and un-put-down-able coming of age story.

I absolutely LOVE the art style and writing by Inio Asano, which I first discovered and fell in love with by reading Goodnight Punpun, and decided that I needed to read more of his work ASAP.

His stories are definitely on the darker and more twisted side, but that seems to be something that is completely up my alley when it comes to my reading tastes.

I can't wait to read more from Inio Asano very soon as I think his work is completely underrated!

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't really understand Inio Asano at all. This was a frustrating read about apathetic teens, sexuality, mental health, and I have no fucking clue. There were some serious issues the book was contending with, but I don't think Asano ended up saying very much about them. Maybe he understands teens and their fickle feelings and behaviours more than I do. Maybe I'm too old to really appreciate this, or too white. Maybe it's totally vapid tripe. I have one more Asano book on my pile to go through, but I am pretty sure I just don't jibe well with his work. Alas! At least he's a brilliant artist and his books are quite pretty.

[Juan Carlos malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una obra donde el autor explica lo corrosivo del amor y la dura vida sexual de los adolescentes depresivos.

Aquí les dejo mi opinión más amplia de esta obra :

Hoy toca que hablemos de un autor que te lleva a conocer los horrores de la realidad, la depresión, la intimidad adolescente, el desamor y la muerte desde la pluma de INIO ASANO y su obra la chica a la orilla del mar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXzbd...

[Mirjam hoffman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just a big no. Based on the cover it sounded as a manga about a boy and a girl aged +/- 15 falling in love. It was just about sex and lots of it between two minors where the boy threats the girl disrespectfully (too pornographic). What a great example it sets...... It basically told no story and in my opinion it shouldn't have been in the YA section. A waste of money.

[Niki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely amazing. That's all I'll say.

(I've read A LOT of manga, I should add it to my "Read" list)

[Violet ♡]

This is about teens being challenged and exploring.

Those scenes are very graphic, but I think that is part of how Asano portrays stuff. 😵‍💫

[Sam (superblomper) · Rating 5 out of 5]

wowee zowee I'm depressed

[Milena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrestled by the sea
A dream of you and me
I let it go from me
It washed up at my feet
Staring at the sea...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5gUs...

Mnogo sam se isplakala uz ovu mangu, kao da nisam već sve suze isplakala pre par nedelja u Jadran plivajući (salinitet mojih suza je manji od trenutnog saliniteta mora, sigurno zbog globalnog zagrevanja). Koliko god puta da mi se slomi i izgrebe srce, uvek će ga more izglačati 🌊