Tbh this manga is probably the most realistic portrayal of what living as an LGBTQ feels like in Japan (or Asia as a whole, because I relate to it a lot, having live in Indonesia).
The best thing about this manga is certainly the characters. The incredible diversity aside, everyone is depicted so humanly. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE how, even tho LGBTQ and its experiences are the one of the core themes of this manga, it makes a really bold statement that a label doesn't make you YOU. It's not... your whole thing. It doesn't make up your whole life.
And this is what I've been struggling with irl too coz... I don't exactly fit in the cis hetero society because of my preferences and gender expression. But I don't fit in the LGBTQ community either because I just... don't feel like I'm bi enough or nonbinary enough or demisexual enough. I just want to be myself, whatever that 'self' is. And even now, I have labels that I /might/ think represent me, but I'm still so confused about them, because I feel like the community pressures me into putting on a label on top of inventing more and more new labels and concepts I'm not familiar with.
So this manga is liberating in a sense that... you don't need to understand yourself fully. It's okay to be confused. It's okay not to put on a label. It's okay to put on a label and not have it define you as a person. It's okay to just... be. To just exist, even if majority of people in society aren't like you. And because we exist, that is enough of a reason for us to live happily. That's why I'm really in awe with Anonymous. Because if there's anyone I relate to the most, it's either Saki (with their happy lesbian marriage lol) or Anonymous with their label-less, careless attitude. If I do end up finding someone I want to spend my life with, I want the relationship to be like Saki's. But tbh atp in my life, I feel like I relate to Anonymous better lol.
Aaaaanywayy, the characters are great. They're humanely, fleshed out, distinctive, and each have their own character progression, goals, background, etc. These characters did a lot of heavy lifting of the story... but the story itself is actually so, very simple. And that's the negative part about it. Because it's very character-driven and simple, the earlier parts don't interest me much coz I don't know who these characters are yet. I don't care about them, and therefore I don't care about the story. I have difficulty getting immersed in the earlier parts because of this.
Art is great, but tbh nothing's too groundbreaking about it. Overall impression is only 8, because as much as I love the latter part, it took me a while to get there and I'm not a patient person.
So yeah, here are my final score:
[Art: 8, story: 8, overall impression: 8, characters: 10] final score 9 (rounded from 8.5)
