Holiday Review #22: MY LOVESICK LIFE AS A '90S OTAKU

 And now books set within my lifetime could technically be considered "historical."

If you'll excuse me, I just have to go sit in the corner and shrivel into a withered crone.

MY LOVESICK LIFE AS A '90S OTAKU (Inishie Otaku no Koiwazurai), by Nico Nicholson.  First published in 2021 and first published in North America in 2023.

PLOT:

Megumi Sato cannot believe how readily otaku culture has integrated into the everyday life of her teen daughter Sakura and those like her.  Back when she was Sakura's age, she was transferring to a new school and desperate to hide the fact that she was a manga-reading, anime-watching fujoshi.  Then she met the class president Masamune, whose tough looks, skills at basketball, and resemblance to Megumi's favorite character from Slam Dunk won her heart almost instantly...until she learned that he hated otaku.  Everyday became a struggle for her, trying to figure out how to make her feelings known while hiding her true dorky self from him and her classmates.

STORY:

Presuming that you do not have a similar moment of despair after reading that premise and being forced to grapple with the fact that you are getting old, My Lovesick Life works as both a goofy shojo romance and a study in how much changes and how much stays the same when it comes to being an otaku.

Bless her heart, teen Megumi is an absolute dork.  Like a lot of anime-loving teens the world over, she retreats into this world of fantasy as an escape from her humdrum life and everyday insecurities, to the point that she has a bad habit of viewing the world entirely through the lens of her favorite fictions.  This leaves her wholly out of her depth when it comes to dealing with the realities of first love, with only shojo manga to guide her way.  Combine that with your typical teenage moodiness and you get a girl who is mentally pinballing between ecstasy, despair, and nerve-wracking anxiety.

The push and pull between her desire to fit in and her fervent love of anime and manga only gets stronger as the volume goes on.  At one end is Masamune, who is a pretty upstanding kid even if he's kind of tough-looking and blunt.  You can see why Megumi (and others) are swooning over him, and why it hurts so much to hear him casually dismiss otaku.  At the other end is Michiko, an out and proud otaku who recognizes Megumi as one of her own and urges her to abandon any notion of real-world romance.  In between is the dark horse "Yui," Megumi's otaku penpal who is in truth a sweet young boy who also suffers from having to hide his otaku tendencies from others.  Of course, the reader (and present-day Megumi, who occasionally interjects from the sidelines) knows that this doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing matter, but it's that constant push and pull that drives both the comedy and the drama. There's also the framing story.  The present-day Megumi is a forty-something woman who's been divorced for a decade.  No matter how her teenage years went, this is not just the usual story of a girl meeting her first love in school and living happily ever after.

Is this series a shameless serving of 'memberberries for old-school otaku?  Absolutely!  It names drops a bunch of the biggest hits of 1995 without shame or copyright-avoiding concealment, as well as other trends like photo booths or otaku customizing stationary with drawings and homemade stickers of their favorites.  Yet it clearly comes from a place of love, from someone who was there at the time, knew and loved this stuff, and grew up to embrace and forgive their younger, cringier self.

ART:

Nicholson's art is loose and rubbery, the sort of thing that's made for comedy.  I do like how she slips some 90s character design elements into the characters, such as Megumi's little genki fang and the subtly hatched blushes.  I really like how loose she gets with the faces - Megumi makes some absolutely wild takes, and it stands out all the more when she's contrasted against the relatively stone-faced Masamune.  Nicholson takes more care than you would expect with the details.  It's not just about all the period-specific references, but even the backgrounds have a decent amount of detail and she absolutely nails the amateurish chuuni qualities of Megumi's OC sketches.  I suspect that particular detail will hit hardest with anyone who was a weeb as a teen.

RATING:

My Lovesick Life As a 90s Otaku works as both a goofy teen romance but also as a fun snapshot of 90s otaku culture through a teen girl lens.  Those that are old enough to remember will be able to commiserate, but even those too young to have experienced this stuff first hand will still be able to get a lot of enjoyment out of this series.

This manga is published by Kodansha Comics.  This series is complete in Japan with 4 volumes available.  1 volume has been released and is currently in print.

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