Two young men in love try to deal with the fact that their lives are moving in different directions.
Creative Staff
Story and Art: Scarlet Beriko
Translation/Adaptation: Amber Tamosaitis
Lettering: J. Piechowiak
What They Say
The Boys’ Love/BL school romance by the popular creator of Jackass! and Jealousy!
Nagisa may look like a delinquent, but he’s just a typical teen trying to figure out what to do with his life. Nagisa’s best friend, Issa, already knows what his passion is: fish! Issa often skips school to work at the Nagahama fish market, and the two friends hang out together near the ocean almost every day. When Nagisa suspects that Issa has a girlfriend, it turns his world upside down. Is Nagisa in love with his best friend? And could his best friend possibly love him back?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Nagisa and Issa have been best friends since middle school. However, for both of them, the word “friends” does not really describe the feelings each has for the other. As they are approaching the end of high school, those feelings are beginning to intensify, as is the growing concern for what graduation will bring to the two of them. When Issa takes the initiative and kisses Nagisa, sense is finally made of their emotions, but it also complicates their life decisions. While Nagisa is worried about entrance exams and what exactly he wants to do in college, Issa has opted to drop out of high school to become a commercial fisherman, a career that will seem him gone to sea for up to six months at a time. If they hadn’t kissed, Nagisa could have been happy for his friend, but can his heart handle being separated for so long from his love?
Nagahama to Be, or Not to Be is a book that is really good for what it is, but I am left frustrated that it isn’t more than that. Nagisa and Issa are interesting characters that you can’t help but root for, and their relationship is built well. They are both introduced to us as delinquents, two guys who refuse to take school seriously, if they even show up at all. However, the reality could not be farther from the truth: Nagisa’s seemingly uncaring attitude comes not from a place of indifference but rather a place of confusion about what his future holds, and Issa has chosen a very valid path that draws him away from traditional academics. They are far from the stereotypical dropouts destined for nothingness.
The way they dote on each other is cute, too, as they clearly love each other—even if they haven’t fully admitted it to themselves—and are not afraid to show it. This leads to one of the things I like the best about this book: their relationship is never treated as anything to be ashamed of nor that they need to justify or hide. Before they kiss for the first time, Issa is dragged away by a cute girl that Nagisa assumes is Issa’s girlfriend. After Nagisa stews in confusion (and not a little bit of jealousy) for a little while, Issa comes to find him, and they talk it out—very openly, very clearly, and very much in front of a few underclassmen who Nagisa plays soccer with. Often, this would lead to embarrassment and awkwardness with the underclassmen (if not even a certain amount of disparagement), but instead, the underclassmen cheer the two of them on and are very happy for them. This is the way everybody in the story treats it: as if what Nagisa and Issa have together is normal, as it should be. It’s very nice to read a story where we don’t have to wade through those waters. We can just deal with their relationship.
Aside from being a breath of fresh air, this is also a good thing because while I think it builds their relationship well, the problem with this book is that as a one-shot, the scope of their story is just too big. Their relationship is sweet, but the complications that they find on their path to happiness come across as facile, because we don’t really have the time to properly establish the difficulties they face. An issue is raised, and within a few pages, it’s resolved. If we had to deal with “society” as well, it would feel even more rushed.
There is no bigger offender in this than what acts as the major conflict in the book: Issa’s new job. Just as their relationship is taking off, Issa tells Nagisa that he has gotten a job with a commercial fishing company, which is going to take him offshore for the next six months. Nagisa is understandably upset, as he does not want to be separated from Issa for that long. To complicate matters, Issa accidentally drops his phone in the water one day, breaking it, and can no longer contact Nagisa, except that to Nagisa, all he knows is that Issa has stopped messaging him and worries about what’s happening. However, Issa is able to contact his parents from another person’s phone who are able to pass along to Nagisa why Issa hasn’t been speaking to him, smoothing things out.
This entire arc, from Issa leaving, to the whole thing with the phone, to his eventual return, plays out over sixteen pages. It’s an eternity for the two young men, but it’s a short jaunt for us as readers, and it ruins any sense of drama or tension the whole thing might have. It’s frustrating, because it should have been this drawn out, emotional arc that underscores the feelings they have for each other, but instead, it carries no more weight than if they had to go a day without seeing each other. For a one-shot, it’s just trying to bite off too much, and so nothing has the emotional depth it could. It would have been better if it either shortened the scope or had a little more time to develop. A few more chapters/a second volume would have done this work wonders.
In Summary
Nagahama to Be, or Not to Be is a one-shot that has potential to be a lot more than that. I really enjoyed what was in these pages, but it’s more a series of highlights than a true cohesive story, and it could have been so much better with a little more time to work. I do appreciate the fact that it treats the relationship of these two young men as a normal, straightforward thing that doesn’t need to be explained to friends, family, or the world at large and just let them be who they are. It’s a nice change of pace that I feel like more LGBTQ+ works could follow. However, I can’t help but be a little disappointed that this is all we have. Another volume or two to give their relationship a little bit of room to breathe and properly work out their issues would have been nice as opposed to the little snapshots we have here. It feels like the emotion of the story is short-changed with the pace at which we fly through this. Still, for what little time we spend with them, the characters are interesting, and their relationship is compelling, so it’s more than good enough for a quick read. Recommended.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen (13+)
Released By: Seven Seas
Release Date: April 2, 2024
MSRP: $14.99
