It’s summer break for the Yamabuki girls, so it must be time for studying, independent projects, and, of course, the pool.
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Ume Aoki
Translation: Satsuki Yamashita
Lettering: Keiran O’Leary
What They Say:
Real life and growing up are bearing down fast upon the residents of the Hidamari apartments, but they’re going to make time for one last summer together, full of fun in the sun! Amidst Yuno deciding on the topic of her self-assigned summer project and Sae and Hiro attending summer sessions to help focus their goals for life after high school, the girls will really have to go all out to make sure it’s a summer they’ll never forget!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sunshine Sketch is Ume Aoki’s manga about a group of high school students at Yamabuki High School, a private school that is slightly unusual in that it has a dedicated arts division where students can study art full time in high school (most high schools do not have dedicated courses of study for art). The focus is on a group of art students (and one non-art student) who live next to the school in the Hidamari Apartments, which is known for housing eccentric members of Yamabuki’s arts division. The series has, from the start, centered around a short and sweet girl named Yuno, and her interactions with her fellow Hidamari residents: off-kilter Miyako, homebody Hiro, tall and slender Sae, tech-savvy Nori, and shy Nazuna, the only non-arts division resident. If you are reading this volume, the sixth in the series, I assume most of you have already read the previous five and I doubt you need further introduction. If you are looking at this series for the first time with this volume, you will be able to get up to speed and understand most things, but some running gags and longer-running story lines will be lost on you. Go back to volume 1 and start again.
Unlike the anime adaptation by SHAFT (released in North American by Sentai Filmworks under the untranslated Japanese title Hidamari Sketch), the manga is linear in its narration of events, so starting from the beginning is a good idea.
At the very end of the spring semester (the beginning of the Japanese school year), the girls decide to go to an art museum for personal enrichment and pleasure. We get to see some examples of modern art and get to decide for ourselves what to make of it (note: the girls are themselves not entirely reverent towards the works on display).
So, we come to the final summer break of high school for Sae and Hiro, who are now already third-years (seniors in Japanese high school; the translation uses “seniors” for third-years, “juniors” for second-years, and “sophomores” for first-years, which is, as things go, as accurate as you can get if you want to translate it into American high school terms, as Japanese go to high school for only three years). Thus, they are busy taking special summer supplementary classes to help them prepare for university entrance exams. That does not mean, however, that they never poke their heads outside of a classroom. The girls all go together to a local amusement park to have fun.
The younger girls are free to spend their summer as they please, and they all take trips home to see their parents at some point, though the only one whose trip we learn anything about is Nazuna’s. She apparently had an appalling time out in western Japan, where she was visiting relatives with her parents. She is upset that while out there, her parents adopted Kansai-ben, the western regional accent that can sound quite different from the Japanese spoken in Tokyo. The joke, of course, is when Nori returns, having just come home from that region (as she is originally from that part of Japan) and is still speaking in the dialect, which makes Nazuna break down.
With Sae and Hiro busy, Yuno, Miyako, Nori, and Nazuna head to the pool (it is summer, after all), though not for swimsuit fanservice. They are in their standard school suits training for the upcoming school swim meet. We return to an ongoing joke about Yuno, who apparently has not yet mastered the ability to float. Being knocked unconscious by Miyako, however, shows that Yuno is capable of floating, and soon she does manage that (but nothing more; swimming will have to wait a while).
Of course, summer does not last forever, and the last chapters focus on the beginning of the fall semester, the swim meet, and Hiro’s choice of what to do with the rest of her life. That last bit introduces what seems like the first notes of finality to the series. This volume is already the last collected volume published in Japan as well, so Yen Press’ release is now matching the Japanese publication in terms of collected volumes at least (the serialization is ongoing, and there should be future volumes to come). While the series does not have to end with Sae and Hiro’s graduation (as the first character we met in the series was Yuno, one may guess that we should at least see until Yuno’s graduation), with the beginning of the second semester of their final year, there cannot be too much more that we will be seeing of them, considering the pace of the series so far, perhaps a few more volumes at most. Their departure would alter the series quite a bit.
As a four-panel comic, Sunshine Sketch is mainly playing for laughs, and the anime adaptation is largely focused on that, exaggerated to some degree by the non-linear presentation. The original manga, however, with its linear telling of events, puts the focus somewhat more strongly on the characters and their interactions. While it is meant to be lighthearted, slice-of-life comedy, you can also see by this point how much attention and care Ms. Aoki has put in creating these characters and the relationships between them. No less care has been given to fleshing out the supporting cast, such as the eccentric homeroom teacher Yoshinoya, the slightly odd Landlady, the highly odd Principal of Yamabuki High, and Sae’s secret admirer Natsume, who make appearances here and there. While there seems to be one common theme that runs through all of the characters–most of them are weird in one way or another–they are not just one-dimensional hand puppets for the author. Some aspects of them are throwaway jokes (Hiro’s worries about her weight, Yoshinoya’s cosplaying fetish, Sae’s job as a novelist and the stress it causes her), but there are few characters that have just one facet to them. Those layers of depth help to draw in the reader’s attention and hold it, making it possible for rather touching scenes, such as the final chapter, about Hiro’s worries about life after Yamabuki (and more importantly, life after Hidamari).
Yen Press’ presentation continues to be most impressive. The cover and beginning pages are in full color, as they have been since the first volume. The binding is very sturdy and the paper of good quality. The printing overall is crisp and clean without any signs of blurring or bleeding. Chapters open with more richly detailed greyscale panels, making me wonder if these were originally in color (I have never seen the Japanese edition, so I do not know; if they were, I cannot fault Yen Press for changing them to greyscale, as color printing costs are quite steep, and they have already done more than a great many other publishers by including the color pages at the opening of the volume).
The lettering is crisp and clear throughout, without any immediately noticeable typos or other errors. All sound effects are kept in the original Japanese, with English translation fitted in in smaller type nearby, done without obscuring the image. Some signs and visual texts (cell phone texts) are replaced with English, but in a style that meshes with the context and does not look out of place. I cannot comment too much on the translation as I have not seen the original Japanese edition and do not have a proper knowledge of written Japanese. Honorifics are retained in the text without any explanatory notes, thus it is assumed that readers are familiar with the standard Japanese suffixes attached to names. There is a short page of Translator’s Notes included at the end, which do explain some of the more obscure references, though other terms in the main text which may not be widely known do not receive any comment.
Ume Aoki’s art is unique in terms of her presentation of people. She has a distinction method of rendering heads, squashing them to a certain degree, with the effect becoming very noticeable in super-deformed renderings and other expressive settings. That is not because she is incapable of a more naturalistic style (see the dog Pome-chan on page 48, who is drawn in a quite realistic manner), but is a choice.
In Summary:
The first semester ends and it’s time for summer break. Sae and Hiro have work to do as university entrance exams loom in the distance. For the younger girls, it is time to visit the folks and kick back a bit. Of course, there is a trip to the pool, but not to ogle swimsuits: Yuno needs to learn how to float (swimming can come later). By this sixth volume, however, one thing comes into much clearer focus: how well defined these characters are and how much we have come to know them. That aspect becomes even more apparent as we see the first signs that two of them are soon to be moving on to the next stage of life, as high school cannot last forever.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Package Rating: A
Text/Translation: A-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: June 26th, 2012
MSRP: $11.99