#yamashita tomoko

[cinemaobscura]

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window | さんかく窓の外側は夜 (2021) dir. Morigaki Yukihiro

[mapoeggplant]

compilation of old ikoku nikki threads (chapter 46 to 54)

hi guys :) I know I published some ikoku nikki analysis here before, but there are some that were only published on twitter. so here's a compilation of all of them!! thank you so much for reading

(mind you, none of these were rewritten or revised. I decided to leave them exactly as I wrote for the first time. so I'm very sorry for every grammatical mistakes)

chapter 46 (published may 9, 2022)

i absolute LOVE how the chapter is open with the phrase "the path "I" walk on, the "you" walking ahead of me and the "you" following behind me are all connected somewhere" because it sums up the relationship between asa and makio beautifully.

and the phrase gain even more power when we combine with the chapter itself, since we follow asa having trouble with her future and what she wants to do with her life while having this close conversation with her past self.

the image of her talking with makio and her mom being separated by just one page makes her doubts even more dense and palpable. it's her past and present trying to reach for her future self, while trying to understand how she got where she is now,

moments like this really accentuate the feeling that asa has that she never really knew her mom, that every question she always asked were put aside. how could she believe the phrase "mom loves you" when mom wasn't even able to know what SHE wanted in life?

how much is she connected to her mom and her mom's choices? does the fact that her mom gave her a name that simbolizes freedom but never once proclaimed her own liberty will forever interfere her life?

asa is the one she was, the one she is and the one she'll be. her mom is her past, but makio is her present and future. it's too late to understand her mom now, but she can understand herself and the wolf while there's time

chapter 47 (published june 9, 2022)

“(…) things you thought you’d never forget for your whole life, you’ll gradually keep forgetting.” so what are you forgetting about, makio-san?

once again, yamashita-sensei did what she’s known for: created a bittersweet nostalgic scenario linking makio’s life to asas’.

for me, what shined the most was how she managed to connect two very fond memories of them: asa performing an original song versus makio being exposed as a writer for the first time. and although we can read just as it is (aka memories), what we need to put focus on is the way these memories were triggered. this was something that makio once thought she would forget, same as asa, who think this is “just another thing adults are going to say about teenage years”. they are both memories filled with a bitter undertone.

asa sang something that came from her previous doubts. makio had her beautiful memory mixed in with her ongoing war with her sister. both trying to say something more than they are showing, both carrying more depth than they think they do.

this is why ikonikki is so beautiful. because it manages to play with its own narrative and how two people with such different lives can have similar paths. both of them created memories with the same person present in both of them, as a form of mother and sister. makio carries the memory of her first big writing spotlight with her sister not caring about her passion. asa formed this new memory with a song she wrote because of things her mom left behind. using asas’ core memory to trigger makio’s is genius and delicate, as it should be.

they have each other now. makio can watch this small asa as she continue to grow. makio can learn how to love her dog without knowing she already know how to

chapter 48 (published october 9, 2022)

ikokki comes again with a class about writing, non linear narratives and how to transform feelings into words.

this chapter is really a play with narrative, changing points of views about the same relationship and same people. this all to explain that, even if people are so different and experience things differently, can’t they be tied by the same core? we don’t have much of minori, because she’s not here to tell her story. what we can manage to understand from her is thanks to the diary she left for asa and for the glimpse of memories we get here and there. are we seeing minori by who she really were or by what she wrote?

what we also have here, dissolved between the “light and carefree” conversation between asa and makio and the glimpses of minori’s memories, is a discussion about loneliness. minori was always surrounded by people, always being taken care of (she’s surrounded at the hospital, she’s always with friends, her mother understand her, she can relate to her husband) while makio was always the lone child, the one who could never be alone as long as she was left with a book. makio was the lone one, minori was the cared of. but who was, in fact, lonely?

if things were simple, minori would never feel depressed or alone. she finally managed to have the family she always wanted so…why does she feels like this? why does she feels the need to write? why does the feeling of disappearing one day never leaves her alone? the relationship and differences between makio and minori goes beyond what they liked, how they acted or what was so different about them. what made tem so incapable of relating to each other was how they saw loneliness. makio was never alone, minori was never with people.

minori is strong (minori is actually really frail). makio is a problem child (makio actually really had her way with life). if we could go back to the past…would they be able to love themselves even knowing that they would lose each other one day? if makio could go back knowing what happened, would her love for her sister feels fake now, since she knows her sister will die first? is the past really something that need to change just to soothe our present selves??

ikoku nikki is a masterpiece, a gem, a beauty in writing. ikoku nikki is a study, a metaphor, a concrete evidence. ikoku nikki makes me remember why i chose to be a writer in the first place :)

chapter 49 (published november 9, 2022)

““nothing” had me frozen with fear” finished with “that “nothing” will be proof of my freedom and become a sign”. what i’m building now is the foundation of my future, but just because i have “nothing” now, doesn’t mean i’ll never have something.

such a beautiful chapter about how society pressure young teenagers to chose their ultimate future when they can’t even decide what they are going to study first. yamashita uses her narrative power again on her favor, easily blending past - present - future together, but also mirroring the lives of the adults and the teenagers. while focusing the eyes of the reader into the girl talk, she plays with the message by the borders, with the pressure to turn the “nothingness” into something more, into a path that can be walked on.

while asa is talking with the girls, she’s also thinking she’s supposed to decide her whole life now, but has no talent whatsoever; while asking makio if she’ll ever be able to forgive and forget, she’s blaming her “nothingness” into her parent’s death; while she’s wondering if she’ll ever blossom, she’s thinking of she was ever “born” in the first place. and, when we focus on the adults, we have the question being answered: there’s questions we don’t really need to answer or we won’t even ever have the answer to.

“nothing is happening”, but she’s deciding her future. “nothing is happening”, but she’s questioning her past. “nothing is happening”, but…is it really like that?

chapter 50 (published december 9, 2022)

WHAT WAS THAT CHAPTER OH MY GOD what a BEAUTY in writing, in character development, in DEVELOPMENT OF THE PLOT!!!!!!!! every time i think sensei will stop surprising me, she does a 360 and surprise me even more. WOW WOW.

it’s amazing how we start a chapter entirely dedicated to asa and her thoughts about future with makio showing how she accepts her entirely as a human and as a life partner, not as “someone who’s living here for a while”. asa, who thinks she won’t have a home in a near future, is surprised with her name displayed side by side with makio’s. and that little simple detail is what sensei uses to open a huge debate about future and home on asa’s mind. it’s beautiful, impressive even. it’s the nostalgia of something that is waiting for you in the future, making you blond for the things on the present. and, in any given moment, asa says out loud to makio that she wants to stay because “saying things mean giving them life, making it real”.

if she finally admits to makio what she’s thinking/feeling, the idea of not being able to live there anymore will take a shape big enough to gain life. and, her only support of a possibility in staying there, aka being makio’s family, isn’t a very good ground to stand on, since she knows makio’s perception of family is different from hers.

gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous chapter about being seen, about being heard, about future and past. about making things alive even without the same blood. i can’t wait to see what 3rd year asa is going to show us.

chapter 51 (published february 9, 2023)

“loving itself is an act of overcoming fear”. despite the last chapters having a hiding grief, with asa’s future becoming present, we’re shocked with a chapter about…love

there’s no one in the narrative that knows makio like kasamashi; there’s also no one in the narrative that doesn’t knows makio like kasamashi: that’s how his satellite is able to navigate around the woman who challenged him the most. and, in return, makio is giving him his whole heart in a silver plate, talking about fears she doesn’t even understand. was she ever able to feel love? was she ever able to know love? was she ever able to let herself be loved? what emotion divides self preservation and rawness?

makio left a permanent mark on kasamashi, it’s undeniable. he, who never felt love form his parents, fell in love with the most mystical creature he could fine. she, on the other hand, didn’t even noticed her presence on his life. and, using their relationship to parallel with makio’s relationship with asa is genius.

kasamashi never questioned loving someone. makio never questioned her loneliness. that made her blind to all the scars she was leaving behind. and what now, when she’s the one being scarred? asa appeared on makio’s life to teach her how to open herself bare. she, with her little quirks and uniqueness, managed to change the life of someone incapable of love. she, with her young age, managed to force makio to create her first satellite ever, just to circle around her.

she’s scared to love, scared to be someone to miss. scared to be someone who will be missed when she’s gone. scarred of holding dear the one who carries her sister’s, the one she hates the most, dna. scared of finally being able to care deeply for another human. makio, the one who wanted to be left alone, now fear that she one day won’t be there for asa. asa, who had her whole life turned upside down, now have someone to call home. what they have to do now is open up their hearts for each other

chapter 52 (click to access)

chapter 53 (click to access)

chapter 54 (click to access)

[spirit-of-anime]

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window

[communistsister]

Diary of a Strange Land

I’ve been rereading Ikoku Nikki again, an ongoing manga series written by Yamashita Tomoko (who you may perhaps know as the original writer of recent anime adaptation of the supernatural BL series The Night Beyond The Tricornered Window). It’s one of my favourite manga, largely due to the art and very considered, introspective writing, but also because I just empathise with one of the two protagonists a lot.

Some thematic if not literal spoilers will follow.

One of the two protagonists, 35 year old novelist Makio Koudai is wonderfully written; she’s awkward, somewhere on the neurodiverse spectrum, struggles to be around people and prefers solitude; she forgets things, hates phonecalls, struggles to clean up after herself; and she has a tendency to monologue on deep dives into the meaning of words, the uniqueness of everyone’s own feelings, and how it’s okay to hate your family. Much of the plot is her learning to live with her 15-year-old recently orphaned niece, Asa, who she adopts at the start of the series.

Generally though... she’s a rare kind of protagonist that I don’t really see written much, and is also directly relatable for basically everything I wrote above. I see myself in Makio a lot. I also think it’s easy to read her as trans; the author’s background in creating Boys’ Love manga means she tends to draw women with quite androgynous-to-masculine face shapes, and some imagery and subtext has cropped up so far through the series that can be read as supporting Makio as trans. She has at least one close nonbinary friend who she can joke about their junk with; she quickly clocks a supporting character as a teenage lesbian struggling with her identity; childhood flashbacks of Makio’s terrible relationship with her sister often show her in masculine clothing with short hair. It’s not textual but it’s an easy read for me.

As both an author and a neurotic person who largely overthinks things and lives inside her own head, Makio does display a lot of emotional intelligence throughout the series; but it’s generally a very analytical display of it that I feel an affinity with. She struggles with direct emotional outbursts, and sometimes fails to read how others feel until it’s said out loud; she explicitly says she struggles guessing people’s thoughts and emotions. But when able to take a step back and describe an emotion or situation in a more literate way, she expresses a real understanding of the nuances of a lot of difficult emotions, like waxing lyrical on the expression of grief when her niece Asa is thinking about her recently deceased parents, by discussing the use of tense in both english and japanese:

Makio’s a good protagonist to co-centre the story around; Ikoku Nikki deals with the obvious themes of grief that come from having an orphaned character, but keeps going into some other less familiar areas. Whether your parents love you; how and when it’s acceptable to be angry; being unable to relate to others’ feelings; breaking up with a partner because they feel too perfect and you feel undeserving of love; the struggle and loneliness of writing & creating art. Makio often takes a teaching role in chapters about these topics, conveying wordy thoughts to Asa as the latter struggles through processing grief & growing up through school. Makio’s own past is told through often-abstract flashbacks rather than spelled out, but it’s clear from how she acts in the present day that she’s developed a sort of detached, almost disassociative maturity around being a person, and her advice to Asa usually comes across as pained sympathy instead of lecturing. Coupled with a small cast of similarly well-rounded supporting characters and their own internal and external emotional dialogues, Ikoku Nikki both starts strongly and grows over its chapters to be a really thoughtful story about sets of complex emotions. In case you can’t tell from me writing a long post about it, I really recommend it, as a relatively uncommon example of manga with a well-fleshed-out adult cast dealing with the low, relatable stakes of trying to be happy.

[asnowperson]

I finished reading the side story to Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa no Yoru, which is aptly named Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa wa Yoru-Sono Ato (さんかく窓の外側は夜 その後). I'm talking about this book.

It has a 3-chapter side story with our cast solving another curse case, originally published in BexBoy in 2021, and short bonuses and illustrations by Yamashita. It's a rather short volume, but quite enjoyable for the fans of the series. And reading Yamashita dialogue always gives your brain a good language exercise and makes you feel insecure about your comprehension abilities. ❤️

I'll post Hiyakawa and Mikado because I've missed them.

I'm looking forward to her next series after the masterpiece that is Ikoku Nikki ended.

[drshartsmangaemporium]

Yamashita Tomoko • Ikoku Nikki • ch.1

[iphisesque]

Her, Yamashita Tomoko (2009)

[soft-manga]

her

[hiranospiercing]

ikoku nikki is about to end and honestly i still haven't sorted out my feelings regarding how i experienced it, it's just i have read a lot and i keep reading a lot but there are certain storylines and characters that you end up forming a connection with and it's such a different type of grief once you know you have to part and well yes i can most definitely read it again and again and again but it will no longer be the same as it once was and i think articulating my thoughts and sorting out those feeling probably feels like goodbye and that's why i kind of don't want to indulge in that but at the same time this manga has affected me so much that i feel the need to talk about it and sort all those incoherent thoughts as a way to appreciate it, yes, i might do it soon, though not today.

[elmaxlys]

Read Yamashita Tomoko's works, guys. For health.

(the order is interchangeable)

[mapoeggplant]

ikoku nikki chapter 54 - the end // spoilers

“why can’t you just say that you love me?”

“those words wouldn’t be enough”

and whichever words i chose to write here, they wouldn’t be enough to thank yamashita tomoko-sensei for the story she created.

ikoku nikki is, secretly, a story about love and how silently loving someone can produce music so loud that it prevents us from speaking our truth. it’s a story about loneliness, about company, about being who we are. there was a lot that could’ve been explained in the final chapter, but sensei opted to insert us inside the narrative.

by not answering some questions (such as asa’s parents and what they thought of her), we’re immersed in asa’s future and how she’s slowly learning to live without answers. there are still so many questions to be made, so many answers to hear and so many people to talk to — but in the end, what it mattered the most for asa, in that moment, was knowing that she would never be alone and how love she is.

we, as readers, are both makio saying goodbye at the door and asa running for her future. we’re the ones inside the boat and the ones pushing it further. we’re makio, asa, kasamachi, minori, emily, touno and everyone around them, such as the time they still have to live.

for asa, we can only hope for the best and wait for her to come home and visit us.

as for makio's journey, what other beautiful way to say goodbye than with words other than "i love you"?

who would’ve thought that after years of repressed feelings, makio would finally understand what her sister felt half of her life? what she felt when she wrote the diary? what she felt when she said goodbye way too early? makio’s way of showing asa how much she loves her is showing how welcomed she is in her sanctuary. for someone who never saw herself loving someone, allowing asa to continue living there is the same as saying how much it hurts to let her go.

it’s more than love, more than she could ever feel for someone. while asa learned how to chase for a world of her own, makio learned how to build a safe space for her to come back to. it’s the perfect circle for a story that started with endings: a new beginning starting to form.

it hurts to say goodbye. it hurts not being able to open the door and seeing asa there, lying in the sofa. it hurts not being able to fall asleep with the sound of makio’s keyboard. it hurts to finally understand the meaning of having your heart broken.

the circle is incomplete, as it should be. even with the same words tying beginning to end, their lives isn’t ending, just taking a new perspective. for us, what remains is to say goodbye. for them, what remains is to live. and to love. unconditionally.

[scratchp-boocks]

Ikoku Nikki- YAMASHITA Tomoko

[jssicamandy]

NEW FAVORITE: IKOKU NIKKI

I just finished reading this beautiful slice of life manga, a real gem among so many of them. It gotten real hard for me to be able to find gem like this. This one feels like reading fairytale story in my youth and how at the last page there will be "moral of the story" in one or two short sentence and it always feel mind blown for me. I feel very soothed after finishing this.

Diary of a strange land or also called Journal with Witch told the story of how Asa, a junior in High School lost both of her parents suddenly to a car accident. Her estranged aunt, (the little sister of her mom) Makio, offered to take her in and so began their journey of living together. They learned about what it means of being a family is, dealing with words, feeling, and emotions. They found each other as strange, due to how they normally go with their daily things and their point of view of things quite differ from each other.

Makio suggested that Asa started a journal where she could write down everything she wants and how she could even writes some things that are not even real, hoping that she could unload her grief and other emotions down, and we could read bit of what she wrote there. Their dialogue, or sometimes internal soliloquy is beautiful, I love how the words make me feel. I will post some of them after tidying it up if I feel it though.

I am ecstatic after finding out that they will make a movie after this manga, and how the author will also be the screenwriter. I hope it turns out great.

If you have any slice of life manga/manhwa/manhua like this one please do tell me, and if you have site recommendations of where I could read gems like this please whisper it to me by message.

[antisocrates]

[drshartsmangaemporium]

Yamashita Tomoko • Ikoku Nikki • ch. 23

[iphisesque]

Satanic Sweet, Yamashita Tomoko (2004)