The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Hirayasumi

What's It About? 

At 29 years old, carefree Hiroto Ikuta doesn't have a girlfriend, a full-time job, or a plan for the future—and he couldn't be happier. Hiroto's breezy attitude isn't easy for everyone to understand, though. In a world filled with anxiety, confusion, and grief, Hiroto and the people who surround him are all just doing their best to figure out this thing called life.

After developing an unlikely friendship with the grouchy old woman who lives in his neighborhood, Hiroto suddenly finds himself inheriting not just her house but some rather difficult emotions as well. His 18-year-old cousin, Natsumi, moves in with him, but as a struggling art student, she has her own troubles to deal with and may just put Hiroto's easygoing lifestyle to the test.

Hirayasumi is a manga by Keigo Shinzō. Jan Mitsuko Cash provided the English translation. This volume was retouched and lettered by Elena Diaz. Published by ‎Viz Media (May 21, 2024).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris
Rating:

I'm not always on board with the sort of ennui-embracing ode to your yesteryears that Hirayasumi is. Nostalgia is a funny thing experienced differently by different people. While embracing the simple melancholy of coming up through your twenties and thirties shouldn't be something you need a comic book to assist you in doing, there is some engaging value in raw relatability. Whether through happenstance of his own reflected-on life or sheer appreciation for the right kinds of vibes, Keigo Shinzō has captured reflections of multiple life stages that sing to me, and I wound up having a lovely time with Hirayasumi.

The simple setup of Hiroto befriending the elderly Hinae, only to lose her and be left her house, could have been contrived. But through earnest exploration of Hiro's state in life, Hirayasumi questions the necessity of hitting life landmarks at socially expected points. Hiro is doing well for all he's trying to do, and the question of whether he's happy hinges on the very definition of what happiness even is for him compared to other people. As someone who's contemplated that very question far too many times through my winding existential path, it lets this unassuming slice-of-life story hit unexpectedly hard.

The parallel tale of his cousin Natsumi complements Hiro's listless life. She comes to live with him and struggles with her transition into a young adult in college. Hiro and Natsumi's building rapport feels natural as she grapples with an increased responsibility for herself. Hiro tries to let her be while still feeling like he can at least hope for the best for this person. It's all dressed in a genuinely aspirational lackadaisicalness that glorifies the characters as they "go to bars and talk about all sorts of things they wouldn't remember by the next day." That, too, is all that I could ask for as an engaging accompaniment to living the functional parts of my life. I don't know that all art must be predicated on relatability to be appealing. Still, in the case of this first volume of Hirayasumi, it made for the perfect way to pass an afternoon with these characters at the particular pace of their lives.

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Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Slice-of-life stories can be very hit or miss. For full buy-in, they require that we embrace the characters' pace of living and how they do little or nothing, urging us to find the details of their mere existence engaging. Hirayasumi manages that by dint of making its characters both very ordinary and just a little bit quirky. They're recognizably human in a way that doesn't rely on tropes or performative cuteness, and a firm grounding in reality gives this story a deceptive heft.

Hiroto being a person who easily befriends old women goes a long way to making this work because I've always gotten along much better with the elderly than people my age. Hiroto accepts this about himself; it may be a little weird, but he genuinely enjoys the company of his elderly friends. He works at a fishing pond frequented by many older people, but it also allows him to get to know those he might not otherwise interact with. This is driven home by his relationship with Hanae, an eighty-three-year-old woman he befriends and who eventually leaves him her house in his will. We don't see much of Hanae in the story – mostly, we learn about her through the artifacts of her life left behind in her house, but we can still see that she and Hiroto were true friends through the brief interactions we're privy to.

His cousin, Natsumi, who comes to live with him in Tokyo for college, doesn't quite get that. If Hiroto is living at his own pace, not lamenting his failed acting career and enjoying cooking in Hanae's kitchen, Natsumi is consumed with the desire to move forward. At eighteen, she's eleven years younger than Hiroto, and that is almost painfully obvious as she forces herself to do what she thinks she's “supposed” to do while hiding her actual goals behind her closed bedroom door. She's a young eighteen, which contrasts very well with Hiroto's settled twenty-nine. It's not that he doesn't want to move forward, but more that he's comfortable with his life, while Natsumi is still trying to figure out that there are no “have to” directives. In some ways, she's trying to get to the point where he's at, even if she doesn't realize it yet.

There's a very old-fashioned feel to how the narrative is put together. The obvious narration, as if the creator is telling us a story around the kitchen table, works well, and the deceptively sparse art makes this feel like an older type of storytelling, where voice and still image combine to form a whole. It's slow, a little sad, and a little sweet all at the same time, and even if slice-of-life isn't your usual genre, it's worth checking out.

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MrAJCosplay
Rating:

If I describe Hirayasumi in one word, it would be cozy. Sometimes, you want to sit down and enjoy a warm meal from a grandparent or lie down in your house during a sudden rain storm. That simplicity is at the heart of Hirayasumi, and I always appreciate stories like this as a palate cleanser from the crazy hectic nature that is my life. Hiroto is a character I wish I could relate to, and I don't mean that in a bad way. He is a character who tried pursuing a dream, only to end up feeling stressed out because of it, and so instead opts to enjoy the more simple pleasures of his everyday life, from his fishing job to going out for drinks with friends to taking up random hobbies. He's just an average, sweet guy, and the book starts with him being rewarded and arguably punished for that simplicity.

He ends up striking a rapport with a jaded old woman and reminds her about the simple pleasures in life, like sharing the company of somebody who genuinely enjoys being around you. It's a shame that this rapport ends up getting cut short, but in its place is a repeat of that dynamic as he ends up looking after his cousin, who seems to be tired from life in a slightly different way. She is a young adult still figuring everything out, including what she wants to do in life and with whom she wants to interact. She clashes with her cousin but ultimately wants to appreciate the simple things as he does. There's just something very soft about this series, which even translates to its presentation with a lot of almost dopey character designs that emphasize rounded, circular faces over hard edges. I could reread this book a dozen times even though I'd only pick it up during a relaxing time. If you're a fan of the slice-of-life genre, then give it a read to experience that coziness for yourself.