“Let’s Be a Family” is a thoroughly enjoyable, found-family love story about three childhood friends who grow up to raise a daughter. Chiaki, Kazuma and Tomoe have known each other their entire lives; Chiaki and Kazuma’s parents helped raise Tomoe after her parents died. While the boys grow up to become boyfriends in high school and then lovers as adults, Tomoe is the wild child of the three. One day she comes home pregnant after a long trip, but then, being a frontline war photographer, is off on another assignment, leaving her friends to raise baby Ayu.
While, objectively, the art is skillful but average, there’s something about the way Kurahashi draws the guys, Chiaki and Kazuma, that sets it apart. She certainly follows manga visual tropes, but there’s an individuality to the two men that (I think) comes from the artist’s commitment to naturalism within manga formula. The three-quarter and profile views often add a gentle, meandering curve to the mouths, while the profile silhouettes feel closer to those of real people. There are panels that look more like sketches from life than manga story elements. It’s nice to see an artist that doesn’t feel pressured to over-design her characters, as so many do in a desperate bid to stand out from the crowd.
Aside from that, Kurahashi clearly loves drawing slender men, and I offer my long lasting gratitude in return. Neither Kazuma nor Chiaki have muscular arms or legs, but the loving way Kurahashi draws their narrow limbs is even more sensuous because they look and feel more authentic than the typical, stylized BL muscle boy. It also helps that the poses she chooses are full of a casually intimate body language: Chiaki and Kazuma’s arms, legs, hips and shoulders are draped over each other ways that speak quietly of abiding and confident affection.
It will cover as no surprise that Ayu steals the show a number of times before the end, and there are a number of tender and anxious moments as the trio confronts life’s challenges. This is a one shot, but I’ve ordered two other titles by Kurahashi, based on the strength of this one. I adored reading “Let’s Be a Family,” loved the characters, and it lifted my spirits today.