[Content warning: discussion of suicide and suicidal ideation]
As the journey to Yomi continues, Mika and her companions pick up a stray researcher who’s been looking into a certain immortal who keeps cropping up in Japanese history. Her interest might not be purely academic, however, and could she be Hibino’s soulmate or is there more lurking beneath the surface?
If Mika was the focus of our first volume, there’s a strong gaze turned to Hibino this time out and the fact that immortality is not half as good an idea as it first appears. The first story in particular relates a tale that ends poorly, insofar as it’s a reflection of the nature of how people pass through one another’s lives.
Then Awashima enters the picture and, at first, she seems academically interested in Hibino, but her true feelings lay buried beneath her ostensible pursuit of knowledge. And Mika really doesn’t like her, which adds a note of friction to our group.
Which makes sense - we see that Awashima is obsessed with prolonging life, as she has a friend who is terminally ill, and thinks Hibino has the answers. Contrasted with Mika, whose only goal is to reunite with her dead friend. The clash of personalities is well done and feels very natural.
And Hibino does have the answers, except the answer is that immortality is a curse, which he’s had to learn himself over many, many years. Awashima’s not about to just give up though, despite all his warnings, but suffice to say that while first played for laughs, the emotions buried here will not stay that way for long.
Mika gets a little more food for thought as well, since Awashima’s interpretation of Yomi is much, much different and adds the interesting wrinkle that Mika might not realize what she’s getting into by going to die. It’ll be interesting to see if they clarify exactly what Mika’s relationship was, as there are some hints that this could be fuelled by a lot of guilt.
There’s a lot of high concept back and forth in this, so I wouldn’t recommend it when you need something light and fluffy in your life. But the plotting is quite good and there are some neat little twists - the one at the end of the book is a real eyebrow raiser. The continued mix of Japanese folklore is really neat as well.
Hanging over everything is Mika’s cheerful journey towards death. Obviously the hope is that this trip shows her the value of being alive, I suspect that’s partly why the group keeps detouring so much more than is necessary, but that almost seems too obvious. There are certainly worse things than remaining curious about where the story is going, mind
4 stars - this is well done, but also thoughtful and slow, and kind of a bummer at times. If you have a rough relationship with suicide, I can see this being a hard go, even if it’s being kind of oblique. As a mashup between folklore and road trip, however, it’s a very good blend.