Merry Month of Manga: SHINO CAN'T SAY HER NAME

 I finally found it - a Shuzo Oshimi manga that doesn't have weird hangups about women!  It's a miracle!

SHINO CAN'T SAY HER NAME (Shino-chan wa Jibun no Namae ga Ienai), by Shuzo Oshimi.  First published in 2011 and first published in North America in 2021.

PLOT:

Shino has long suffered from a stutter, one that tends to stop up her speech entirely in moments of stress (which only serve to make them more stressful).  It strikes during her class introduction, which only leads to mockery and alienation.  Then Shino meets Kayo, a rough-around-the-edges classmate who loves music but can't sing to save her life.  They form a tentative friendship, but can it survive a school festival music performance, a classmate with a crush, and Shino's own anxieties?

STORY:

What really grabbed me about Shino Can't Say Her Name is how visceral it can be.  Now, Oshimi is no stranger to writing stories about anxious teens and getting deep inside of their heads.  In this instance, though, the circumstances are much more mundane and personal.  As Oshimi notes in his afterword, he has a stutter and believes that his difficulties in communication are part of what led him to be a mangaka in the first place.  It's clear that much of of Shino's behavior - her thoughts, her coping mechanisms, her fears, the "helpful" suggestions she gets from her teacher and parents - comes from Oshimi's own real, lived experience.  This gives the whole book a certain je ne sais quoi that isn't present in his other works.

Maybe I just glad that for once the protagonist wasn't a teen boy grappling with his sexuality and the concept of women as an unknowable, frightening force.  It's nice to know that he can write a female protagonist who is a fairly normal teen outside of her speech impediment.

There's also a certain degree of verisimilitude to the friendship between Shino, Kayo, and their classmate Kikuichi.  Kayo comes off as abrasive at first glance, but this also means she's one of the few people willing to be direct and honest with Shino and willing to offer work-arounds when the words can't come.  In comparison Kikuichi is well-meaning but he's mostly interested in getting close to Shino.  His willingness to apologize for his previous teasing is a good sign, but he doesn't really comprehend how much Shino is struggling internally and how much his intrusion into her and Kayo's world makes things even more complicated and thus even harder to communicate.

I appreciate that Oshimi doesn't give it a fairy tale ending.  Shino is able to mend her friendships, but it doesn't fix her stutter or suddenly make her the most popular girl in class.  If anything, we get an epilogue showing that she's still dealing with it as an adult and mother.  It's still a happy ending, though.  She's not longer alone, and has found her own ways of making herself and her thoughts known.  She's a functional adult, and that onto itself is a victory.

ART:

Stylistically, this isn't much different from every other Oshino manga I've discussed previously.  You've got his down-to-earth character designs, his attention to everyday details, his use of extreme, sweaty close-ups for moments of intense anxiety, his spacious panels, and his smart use of panel composition.  Since this is a drama, there's a bit more downtime between the anxiety attacks than usual.  If anything, this gives each instant a little more dramatic punch than it might otherwise, despite the otherwise ordinary setting.

PRESENTATION:

There's not much of note for extras on the inside.  I just wanted to note the fancy French flaps and nicely textured paper stock used for the cover.

RATING:

Oshimi went outside of his usual wheelhouse and tapped into something personal with Shino Can't Say Her Name and the end result is all the more relatable and powerful for it.  

This book is published by Denpa Books.  It is currently in print.