Umimachi Diary

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A well-thought-out and realistic family story that won’t throw the usual overdone tropes at you. Irregularly published over a twelve years span for only nine volumes, Akimi Yoshida accomplished her work with utmost care and no haste. Umimachi Diary portrays flawed individuals dealing with their life's struggles, some heavier than others. A slice of life as its core, it still presents drama plot points, but is never sorrow-filled and generally keep an optimistic tone. As there’s no need for everything to remain perfect in life to obtain happiness, even the worst in life can eventually bring it to you. Such is the arrival of Suzu ... Asano in the daily lives of her half-sisters, the girl born from the unfaithfulness of their own father.

Suzu’s backstory somewhat gives her the lead in all the main characters, as we watch her acclimate herself to living together with her new-found sisters, and how she is now to experience the simple existence of an ordinary teenager. But the story still alternatively focuses on each sister, as we primarily follow them in their work or school lives but also their romantic lives. The aftermath of their father’s death also lingers on as they must deal with unknown or estranged family members.

Each and every sister has their own well-crafted and well-defined personality, their good points and their obvious flaws. It remains interesting to watch them even in the most mundane situation, an essential part of any decent slice of life story. The supporting characters of Kamakura are also fleshed out; none of them seems like an afterthought or disposable. To the point that the border between main and side characters gets more and more indistinct as the narrative goes on.

The artwork looks mostly fine, but clearly not the reason you would ever want to read this manga. It stays on the rough side but remains constant from start to end even though the story took more than ten years to complete. You can easily differentiate characters from each other, and their appearance generally fit their personality well. On another end, the author most often struggle to draw eyes in a way that doesn’t make her characters look kind of derpy. Which pretty much stands as the only negative thing about this manga as a whole.

As far as I’m concerned myself, this story took me by surprise. It was more elaborate and well crafted that I thought it would be. But it was even more surprising as it didn’t seem to get much attention online. Which constitutes the main problem this manga suffers from. As of now, there’s no official English translation. And yet, Umimachi Diary comes across as relatively well-known in its home country. It earned prestigious awards and received a big-screen film adaptation from the Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda. Does North American publishers consider it unprofitable or too old? Most probably. It still didn’t stop European publishers to make it readily available in French, Italian and Spanish. I can only naively hope that it will someday get translated into English so that the most people as possible can comes to love this work.

If you can actually find Umimachi Diary in a language you can read, you’re one of the lucky few. Don’t hesitate if you like character-driven stories with a touch of drama and romance. It is, all in all, a well-written, well-paced slice of life manga.