The understated drama of We Were There is sure to make it a favorite for those who like their shoujo a little quieter and more realistic.
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Yuki Obata
Translation: Nancy Thistlethwait
Adaptation: Tetsuichiro Miyaki
What They Say
Nanami Takahashi falls for Motoharu Yano, the most popular, carefree boy in class. For Nanami, it’s first love, but Yano is still grieving the death of his girlfriend who died the year before.
Nanami starts high school with high hopes of making lots of friends. She develops a crush on the enigmatic Yano, but he may have too many secrets for her to handle.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Nanami Takahashi, age 15, is faced with an unenviable dilemma: even on her second day of high school, she’s yet to find anyone she went to junior high with or manage to make new friends. When she manages a friendly conversation with two girls who are already close, Nanami promises to nominate one of them for class president. The only problem is that Nanami can’t remember the girl’s name, and when she asks another boy in their grade, he purposefully gives her the wrong name–and Nanami ends up as class president. After that mortifying situation, Nanami knows that she has at least made her first unfriendly relationship with one Motoharu Yano.
However, things don’t stay that bad for long. She manages to get on cordial terms with the girl who sits next to her in class, the standoffish, intelligent Yuri Yamamoto, and at least finds herself fitting in with her classmates a little more easily. And despite the way that Yano treated her before, Nanami is unable to resist his personable charm and easy going nature, even as she finds out more and more about his past. It turns out that Yano was dating Yuri’s older sister, Nana, when she died in a car crash, but that Nana had been cheating on him. Even knowing that she could never compete with the gorgeous, older, deceased Nana, Nanami summons her courage and confesses. Yano’s reaction is only more confusing for her, as he is unconcerned and kind by turns, often expressing that he simply “doesn’t know.”
In Summary:
We Were There’s first volume is a quiet introduction into a series that, so far, promises to have subtle, emotional drama far beyond what most of its contemporaries settle for. Nanami’s character, which could have easily descended into the somewhat dim-witted, energetic heroine, manages to avoid many of the clichés through simple self-awareness. She has a crush on Yano, despite his sometimes rude and hypocritical actions, but knows both of these things. The only real hindrance to this story is that charisma is hard to portray via illustrations, and Yano sometimes comes off looking like the smooth talker that he is rather than someone with natural likability. However, by the end of the first volume, he manages to redeem himself by solving Nanami’s problems with little fanfare. The complex characters and realistic, understated drama promise to make this series a must-have for shoujo manga fans as it continues.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: November 4th, 2008
MSRP: $8.99
