We Were There 4

Wow.  This is like Sand Chronicles if it were about a hundred times sadder and somewhat more realistic.  Sand Chronicles is pretty good about portraying bittersweet moments in adolescence, but there is a lot of suspension of disbelief that goes on in that series, at least for me.  We Were There… I never have to wonder why the characters are doing certain things.  I can see that Yano is kind of a jerk to Nana because he’s selfish, and that Nana sticks with Yano because she loves him and can forgive him that.  Regardless of what happens, they will both be there for each other.  Nana is the one making most of the sacrifices though, since she’s more sensitive to Yano’s feelings than he is of hers.

Of course, there is the specter of Yano’s old girlfriend Nana hanging over the couple.  This is dealt with extremely realistically.  Yano isn’t constantly bringing up Nana-san (the story uses the “san” when talking about the older Nana) as an excuse to act the way he does.  Normally it’s someone else that brings up Nana-san, though you can see how her death what he says and does in Nana-chan’s presence.  It’s not stated explicitly, which I like.  I love it when series trust the reader to draw obvious conclusions.  There’s lots to be said about subtlety, especially in a series like this.

I’m also glad that Yano isn’t a total jerk.  He is somewhat sensitive to Nana-chan’s feelings, and when he acts out, he always apologizes afterwards and says he understands what he did wrong.  He also tells the truth to Nana-chan about something he probably would have been better off hiding.  It hurts her, but he did it in order to be as honest as possible in an effort to make their relationship work on trust.  The way he breaks this little bit of news to Nana is also handled in the most amazingly tasteful way possible, and it really conveys absolutely everything tragic and nice about the act.

More than anything, though, I like how the story goes about portraying the love between Nana-chan and Yano.  They both love each other and nobody else.  This is never questioned.  There is no cheating, and the only real problem with their relationship is Nana-san, who is dead.  The fact that I know Yano loves Nana-chan very much does a lot to make me forgive him when he’s being selfish.

The end of the book… Nana-chan brings up Nana-san and forces Yano to talk about her.  This conversation is exactly why everyone should lay off Yano about Nana-san’s death.  I cried a little about the outcome, and I sincerely hope things will get better next volume.

I know I said a lot of nice things about Sand Chronicles, but this series takes Sand Chronicles and does it better.  Sand Chronicles forces its sandess, whereas this just has the sadness welling off of every page.  I’ve never seen a dramatic series like this one with such well-written characters and emotions.  There is simply nothing as bittersweet as We Were There.

We Were There 1

It’s really, really hard not to compare this to Sand Chronicles.  Both stories deal with the very real impact and effects of death, both do wonderfully subtle things with emotion and characters, and both are quiet love stories set among high school age protagonists.  Neither use humor, or more specifically gags and over-the-top humor, which lend a lot of gravity to both stories.

I think its the lack of humor that separates this series more than anything else.  The heroine is the type of… uncomplicated girl that you would find in a lot of other series, except in those series there’d be a sight gag when she forgot someone’s name and gave the wrong one, or she’d throw a wild fit when she got a zero on the math test.  I wouldn’t like Nana in any other series, but without all those bits of humor to make her annoying, she comes off as a very normal girl with normal girl problems.  It probably also helps that a big part of this volume is about her not being able to make (good) friends.

Her conversations with Yano in this volume are something of an enigma, and they are in the other volumes I’ve read, too.  You can never tell what Yano is thinking, but this volume casts him as a bit more of a sinister bully than the others do.  For instance, in one of their first chats, Yano makes a motion to choke her, then talks about how he would kill a girl for cheating on him.  He also has a weirdly casual way of dealing with relationships.  I just don’t know what to think of him.

But it is certainly a different take on the shoujo romance, and it’s refreshing to read this after something like B.O.D.Y.  I’m curious to see where the relationship between Yano and Nana will go, because it just seems… somewhat doomed, honestly.

We Were There 3

This series still reminds me a lot of Sand Chronicles.  Both are very quiet and understated, and rely more on small events in day-to-day life rather than big dramatic events to drive the plot.  Both also have a character death hanging over one member of the couple that quietly influences everything.

This volume is full of little hints of larger things to come.  Takahashi is friends with Takeuchi, Yano’s friend, and it’s clear that Takeuchi has a crush on Takahashi (or Nanami, as I will call her, because the Takahashi/Takeuchi names tripped me up a bit while I was reading).  Yano also seems to be both bad about keeping secrets from Nanami and jealous of secrets she keeps from him, even if they are as innocent as shopping for a Christmas present.  He also seems to have something for his old girlfriend’s younger sister, which is unfortunate because I like the relationship between Nanami and Yano so much.

As Michelle pointed out in her review of volume 2, this series has really, really shoujo-y art.  I think it has a lot to do with the shooting stars screentone that appears frequently.  It would be laughable if the series didn’t do absolutely everything with a straight face.  The first page is pretty shoujo-y, with the star screentone broken out over a full page once again with some fairly girly dialogue.

This series is quite good, and I think it’s safe to say that I enjoy this just as much and for the same reasons I enjoy Sand Chronicles.  It’s different in its seriousness, its mood, its outlook… it’s just kind of a breath of fresh air as far as the usual high school shoujo romance goes.  It’s definitely worth a read.  I’ve got the first volume I still need to read, and I should probably do that just to see how hard Nanami worked to win Yano over.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.

We Were There 2

I’m surprised by how easy it is to jump into series at the second volume.  While I’d still rather start with the first, the brief recaps at the beginnings of these always seem sufficient.  Even with a nice little story like this.

I’m always slightly taken aback by series like this… totally serious shoujo without a hint of comedy or melodrama.  Sand Chronicles is kind of similar in tone, though that is a smidge over-the-top drama wise sometimes.  This one is just very serious, from what I’ve read.

It’s also a very simple story.  A girl gets a crush on a boy, and the boy isn’t reciprocating since he’s still trying to get over the death of his former girlfriend.  The story of he and the girlfriend is told in this volume, and it’s most heartbreaking.  It’s made even more so by the steps he takes towards the end of the volume with the girl he likes.  I’m definitely going back for the first volume of this, because while I’m missing absolutely zero story that couldn’t be inferred from this volume, I’m very fond of the interaction between these two characters, and I’m curious to see how it started.

It’s a surprisingly touching series.  I really wasn’t expecting something like this, so I was kind of taken aback while I was reading it.  This is definitely a good thing.  It stands out from… well, pretty much everything else in the Shoujo Beat imprint, I think.  The thing it most resembles is Socrates in Love, but I almost hesitate to make that comparison since it’s been so many years since I’ve read that one.  I’m hoping for a short series, but I like what I’ve read so far, and now I’m curious to see where the relationship goes and how the boy acts.

This was a review copy provided by Viz.