[Februaryuri 2024 rerun] The Summer You Were There

14 Dec, 2024

(base post on Februaryuri here!)

(note that all that follows, unless mentioned explicitly or in the rerun section, was written in February 2024)

The Summer You Were There (Kimi to Tsuzuru Utakata), by Yuama

Publication

Ended (6 volumes)
Published in English (Seven Seas Entertainment), 5 volumes so far
Published in French (Meian) under the title Notre été éphémère, 5 volumes so far

Summary

(CW mention of suicidal ideation from the very beginning. Take care.)

Shizuku, a high schooler and aspiring writer, just finished writing her first and last novel. Isolated after years of purposefully pushing people away, incapable of forgiving herself for some yet unexplained hurt she caused in the past, struggling with an overwhelming fear of people and of being judged, she is barely holding up. And with this last reason to keep on living finally over, she's going to-- she's going to kill herself.
Except at the last moment, a classmate of hers, Kaori, snatches her manuscript. And comes back to her with nothing but praise. And asks for more. Even better: she asks for a romance novel - and suggest that they start fake-dating, for the summer, so that the young author can find some inspiration.

Shizuku is absolutely out of her depth. She hasn't been complimented in years. She didn't think anyone could like what she wrote. She's moved to tears, sure, but she doesn't get why Kaori acts the way she does, at all.
Not that the reader really does at first, either. There's something oddly pushy about Kaori's plan. About how Kaori seems to know things about Shizuku. And about the way she handwaves everything about her and forces a smile.

And so, with this strange arrangement and with many things yet unsaid, the two girls begin their one summer together.

Comment

I was puzzled by this manga when I started. The protagonist's past was both very intense and very vague, the deuteragonist was suspicious, and the fake dating idea felt weird and forced. My brain was wrapped up in expectations of high school romance and meet-cute, and here I couldn't see the two leads together: they were both hiding things, not clearly into each other, and their romantic-coded interactions were there but rang hollow. I couldn't understand where the manga was going with that.
And then at some point I pushed through the first few chapters, and the story started to unfold, and suddenly I got really, really hooked.

The thing is: this manga is consciously vague at first. The uncomfortable romantic façade of the first few chapters is intentional, and this unconventional start makes a lot of sense in retrospect. To appreciate it, however, you have to read on, and to discard the expectations of getting some usual high school yuri out of this. It is ultimately a romance, of course, but there's a lot to unpack about the two characters first, and you have to give the story some time for that to happen. And even then, part of the hook isn't the romance, but the protagonists' struggles, and particularly in my opinion the very realistic portrayal and study of guilt and social trauma Shizuku is going through, which sheds some light on her state at the start of the story.

Indeed, once details of the story start to bubble up, this manga tackles several heavy topics - notably hurting people without realizing it, being ostracized, being forgiven or not, and apologizing. It has a lot to say about forgiveness in general, including change, self-forgiveness, and how to heal from gut-wrenching guilt, fractured relationships, and self-imposed overpowering blame. It handles all this really well, in my opinion: it shows how you can sometimes act repeatedly in a way that is hurtful toward someone without being aware of it; and how suddenly realizing you were the perpetrator of some kind of abuse can be brutal, and even traumatizing when there is no opportunity left to explain yourself, grow, understand, and repair the hurt you caused (or accept that you cannot).
There is also something to be said on how Shizuku is very clearly neurodivergent. There is a gap in a lot of her interactions with people, a filter between what she means and how people interpret it, that contributes to her whole situation - that I will summarize as "vastly misunderstanding how to support someone in spite of your efforts, hurting them tremendously instead, then being judged and judging yourself as irredeemable". That is done in a very careful way, and it really added to my whole feeling of: gosh, I really relate, and gosh, it really hurts. I'd be curious to know whether the author draws from personal experience to give one of the main characters such a past. It is not that detailed, but it is very much there, and it feels painfully real.

Once all these topics are out in the open, The Summer You Were There holds its protagonist kindly, in one of the most nuanced ways I've seen. It doesn't sugarcoat anything: there is no magical forgiveness or acceptance. Shizuku is held accountable for what her past actions caused; but it is done in a way that listens to her, and takes her intentions and her way of interacting with the world into account, too. With Kaori's help, Shizuku reconciles the facts that she did hurt people, and that this doesn't make her a bad person - that she did what she could then and can still do her best now.
Honestly, I felt seen when reading all that - and I hope you do too, and I also hope you don't. In any case it healed me a little, in ways I didn't expect when I picked this manga up.

Of course, this is only half of the story - Kaori is as much of a developped character, and some worrying hints about her health pop up here or there in the first few volumes... and it only gets worse. The way she puts others first deserves as much of an analysis as Shizuku's self-destructive tendencies; but we'd be veering into a detailed review of the whole series if we keep going (also I have yet to read a handful of late chapters and the ending, so I'm less suited to talk about that).
Suffice to say, it's only with all this known, with all this past unpacked, that the two characters build some actual relationship - something beautiful, strong, and tinted with tragedy early on, but not (only) for tragedy's sake: for the purpose of exploring intricate feelings and mental states, and emotional healing and growth.

Rerun section

I would once again advise French readers, if less strongly than for other publications¹, against the French published version as it is for this one. Indeed, the rather strong implication of suicidal intent in the original text, if it is subtler in the English version, is blatantly misunderstood and mistranslated in the French version, removing a core element of the character of Shizuku in doing so.
(Apparently, the English version has minor typos still, but nothing as big and striking.)

Aside from that, well, I still have to read the end of this one, aaaah! I am contemplating restarting it now: considering the pang of empathy and pain I still feel from thinking back on Shizuku, it may be a fitting read these days.

#cohost #februaryuri 2024 #yuri