[Manga Musings on Mondays] My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness – Review

Created by: Nagata Kabi

Chapters: 6

 

Welcome, friends and foes alike, to week 3 of Manga Musings on Mondays. This week I try to give my thoughts on Nagata Kabi’s critically lauded auto-biographical tale, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness. Let’s begin!

THE PREMISE:
A girl in her late-20s tries to come to terms with her sadness and inability to form human connections by developing acceptance for herself; weird, ugly, broken pieces and all.

 

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT:

I’m 23 years old now and am reasonably happy but for most of my teenage years, I really wasn’t.

Clinical Depression, my diagnosis was. During that time, I often wondered why I felt the way that I did.

I have had a happy childhood. I don’t associate any trauma with it. My parents are the nicest people in the world and every day I feel grateful for being born as their child. So, basically, I had no real reason to be unhappy. Yet, I was. Unbearably so. And the worst part of it all was that I couldn’t cry, no matter how badly I wanted to. My chest would hurt, throat would well up, I’d often get dizzy and nauseous. But I still wouldn’t be able to cry. I’d even squint my eyes and rub them till they were red or inflict physical pain upon myself and it would indeed hurt. The pain was there. Yet still, there were no tears.

 

 

When I was very young, probably 8 or 9-years-old, I remember watching Pride and Prejudice with my cousin sisters. They were much older than me and it remains the only time I have watched that movie. I don’t remember a lot from it but there was this scene towards the end when the protagonist guy confesses to the girl. And I remember my sisters completely bawling their eyes over it but I couldn’t understand why. Back then, I was foreign to concepts of love and longing and people’s need to belong. Because I hadn’t experienced it.

And once I got older and experienced my first heartbreak, I understood it – the pain. And I cried. Not because of the pain I had felt that day but because of the pain I’d felt till that day. It all came pouring out and I realized that that’s what I had been missing. Experiences. Not just mine but other people’s too. To be able to accept our own sadness, we need to know that it’s okay to feel that way. That there’s some other person out there who has gone through what you’re going through and they are now fine. It gives you hope that you will be fine too.

And that is what Nagata Kabi’s manga, titled My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is all about: hope.

 

 

In this story, she tackles some heavy topics of depression, self-deprecation, binge-eating, self-harm and the oedipal nature of relationships while never making it all seem exploitative or overly sentimental. She doesn’t talk about these things to make us feel sympathetic towards her but instead does it so as to empathize with her own self. To tell herself that it’s okay to be the way that she is. Yes, she doesn’t like her current self but what is most important is that she is willing to make a change. Her approach towards storytelling parallels Inio Asano’s in many aspects, especially in how matter-of-factly they talk about taboo or difficult topics. Though, Asano’s works tend to be more nihilistic and less hopeful than hers.

In summary, My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a fairly short story that starts off very heavy and in rather singular fashion in illustrating the author’s life experiences but turns into a relatable and universal narrative about acceptance and if you have an hour to spare and are interested in reading something a little dark that may just hit too close to home, this is the perfect manga for you.

 

 

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T READ IT:

I almost don’t want to point out any negatives in this story because of how bravely personal it is, but, this is a fair review so, I’d still have to list out the few possible negatives that may diminish your enjoyment. Firstly, the art isn’t the best out there. Not by a long shot. Every panel is formed of a pleasing blend of pink and white but the character designs look very crude and unpolished. That sometimes does enhance the overall experience for some manga (see the works of Kyoko Okazaki and Jiro Matsumoto) but it might be a hindrance for some. Secondly, this is not a show-don’t-tell manga. In fact, there’s quite a lot of telling. A lot of panels had the protagonist just standing and saying the same things which were written in the adjacent text boxes. So, I guess it’s safe to say that this manga is short on ‘action’. If either of those are deal-breakers for you, I guess you won’t find this manga as that enjoyable a read.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is one of the easiest recommendations for a manga I have ever given. It’s incredibly short and comprises of almost no padding of the story. Even though it may be an autobiographical account of the author’s life, you don’t need to be lesbian or a woman to appreciate and relate to it. You just need to be sad. And, to some extent, aren’t we all?

 

 

RATING: 8.7/10

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Thank you for reading this review. I know that it involved a lot of me just talking about my own personal experiences but considering the confessional nature of the manga, I felt that it was only apt for me to do so.

Do join me next week when I review the manga voted upon through last week’s poll, Satoshi Mizukami’s Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer. And to help me decide what to review the week after, cast your vote here!

As always, feel free to leave any more manga recommendations in the comments down below and I will add them in the coming polls.

See ya next Monday!