TOKYO TARAREBA GIRLS (Tokyo Tarareba Musume), by Akiko Higashimura. First published in 2014, and first published in North America in 2018.
PLOT:
Rinko is an up-and-coming TV writer, but the combination of getting dumped by her long-time boyfriend and the prospect of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics has her and her best friends fearful that they'll be single forever and stuck in dead-end jobs. Rinko's anxieties are starting to get the best of her, and they're not helped along by a hot young actor who keeps bringing Rinko down. What if she should take a chance on him? What if she should try to mend things with her ex? What if? What if?
STORY:
Tokyo Tarareba Girls might not be as endearingly dorky and gentle as Princess Jellyfish, but it more than makes up for that with a slightly more cutting tone and a far more relevant dilemma: coming to terms with your life when you're out of your twenties and the world expects you to have your life together.
Higashimura sets the tone right from the start with a line that's become somewhat iconic among some of my friends: "I spent all of my time wondering "What if?" Then one day I woke up and was 33." That line is the premise boiled down to perfection, and it's the dilemma that drives Rinko and her friends Kaori and Koyuki. It's a situation that a lot of thirty-somethings find themselves in, wondering about choices not made in their youth and fearful that the chance to change those things for the better may already be past. In her notes, Higashimura notes that this story was inspired by a combination of her own exhaustion with marriage and relationships combined with her own friends' sudden anxiety about their own romances (or lack there of) in light of the Olympic announcement, which is likely why it feels so very vivid. It's also just as much a concern for millennials on this side of the ocean, and in the words of Twitter it is a Mood.
Those anxieties take different forms throughout the series. For Rinko, they sometimes take the form of imaginary talking pub snacks (the "tara" and "reba" of the title), voicing her concerns out loud in a drunken haze until they reach fever pitch. Those anxieties also take a more real-world form in the form of Key. He's a popular young actor who works on one of the productions Rinko is writing for, and right away he makes himself notorious by puncturing her ideals and criticizing her work. Their relationship is intriguing because it steps out of the usual mold seen in most josei manga. While it is often antagonistic, it's not contrary enough to be your standard tsundere-style set-up. There is some sense of mutual respect under it all (even if it's often phrased brusquely) and a genuine frisson of sexual tension. It's a combination that gives the story a sense of fresh life, and together with all the talk of social expectations it becomes the sort of josei manga that truly speaks to the young women of today.
ART:
Art-wise not much has changed from Princess Jellyfish. Sure, there's a lot less high-fashion and nothing quite as outrageous design-wise as the some of the girls in the Amamizukan, but Higashimura still has her incredible knack for drawing great faces. She combines this with a lot of sudden shifts in lighting, visual gags, and even style changes to really play up Rinko's changing moods, as well as the shift between reality and imagination.
RATING:
Tokyo Tarareba Girls is arguably the best josei manga on the market. It's smart, insightful, funny, beautiful and anxious, and I've seen first-hand how well it speaks to women in this age group. It may not be the josei manga we deserve, but it's absolutely the one we need.
This series is published by Kodansha Comics. It is complete in Japan, with 9 volumes available. 3 volumes have been published and are currently in print; all 9 volumes are currently available digitally at most major digital manga sites.
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