環と周

by Fumi Yoshinaga, 吉永史

1

Genres: Manga, Comics, Romance, Historical Fiction, LGBT, Fiction, Slice Of Life

Comic

First published November 18, 2024

About the author

Japanese: よしなが ふみ

Fumi Yoshinaga (よしなが ふみ Yoshinaga Fumi, born 1971) is a Japanese manga artist known for her shōjo and shōnen-ai works.

Fumi Yoshinaga was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1971. She attended the prestigious Keio University in Tokyo.

In an interview, she said that "I want to show the people who didn't win, whose dreams didn't come true. It is not possible for everybody to get first prize. I want my readers to understand the happiness that people can get from trying hard, going through the process, and getting frustrated."

Little is known about her personal life. She mentions that her favourite operas are those by Mozart in the author's note of Solfege.

She debuted in 1994 with The Moon and the Sandals, serialized in Hanaoto magazine, but was previously a participant in comic markets.

Of Yoshinaga's many works, several have been licensed internationally. She was also selected and exhibited as one of the "Twenty Major Manga artist Who Contributed to the World of Shōjo Manga (World War II to Present)" for Professor Masami Toku's exhibition, "Shōjo Manga: Girl Power!" at CSU-Chico.

Outside of her work with Japanese publishers, she also self-publishes original doujinshi on a regular basis, most notably for Antique Bakery. Yoshinaga has also drawn fan parodies of Slam Dunk, Rose of Versailles, and Legend of Galactic Heroes.

Reviews

[Juliette Jahm · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai mis la fin du manga à comprendre qu'il s'agissait de plusieurs histoires toujours basées sur les DEUX MEMES PERSONNAGES
pcq leur amour est si fort qu'ils se retrouvent dans plusieurs vies
JE CHOUINE
en vrai plus largement ça aborde plein de sujets intéressants, ce n'est pas du tout centré sur l'amour uniquement (d'où le fait que j'ai mis la fin du mega a comprendre je le REPETE lol)

Par contre ça me donne envie de découvrir d'autres ouvrages de cette managaka !!

[Sanpaku · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10.
It was pretty forgettable. The second story had a very nice prose, and it had its share of good ideas, but for overall it was just mediocre.

[Anna Quilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

kind of enjoyed this collection of 5 short stories set through the ages.
Sweet..understated and sad

[Lucille · Rating 4 out of 5]

Il faut aimer les récits tragiques, mais c’est un recueil très beau et émouvant. Sur l’amour et toutes les formes que ce sentiment peut prendre, beaucoup autour de la mort et du deuil aussi

[marcia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories revolving around two characters in different iterations across time. Fumi Yoshinaga is a brilliant mangaka who is able to capture complicated character dynamics in mere pages. While certain stories are a bit too melodramatic for my liking, the ones I like I love. It's neat how the last story recontextualizes the whole collection and ties everything together.

Favorites:
"Story 1"
"Story 3"

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

So fun fact, I had actually had this pre-ordered before it popped up on NetGalley! So because life is life I didn't finish it by publishing date and switched to reading my published copy (which includes the cover art, but extended, tucked in).

Anyway, Tamaki & Amane is a set of short stories all focused around Tamaki and Amane as they live through different ages and different lives, different genders and different circumstances, but one after another they find each other and touch each others' lives irreparably.

I've been a long time reader of What Did You Eat Yesterday? and I've slowly been reading Ooku recently (both works by the same mangaka author/artist) so getting to see another of Yoshinaga's works was refreshing, and I'm glad I took the time to slowly read these stories.

Gratitude to Yen Press for the eARC and Netgalley for hosting!

[Monika · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love soulmates' stories. Reading about people falling in love again and again is my weakness.

This story focusses on Tamaki and Amane, who meet each other over and over again in different settings. They're not always lovers, sometimes they're friends or even an older woman and her neighbour's child. But they always have a big impact on each other's lives.

I really enjoyed reading these stories. Each of them was short but comprehensive and well written. My only complaint is how sad they are. Apparently, being destined to meet each other doesn't mean you will live a happy life.

The art style is beautiful and makes reading this a pleasure.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a digital copy of this book.

[bella · Rating 3 out of 5]

a nice collection of stories surrounding two people connect by fate, however i wish there was more gayness

[Rozarka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I shouldn't be surprised food played a big role in this one of her mangas as well :D

[Ciel Dahlberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was okay. the premise had promise, but the story fell flat. I would've appreciated more effort to tie each story together because it's clear they're meant to be related.

[Spudpuppy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book of the year was a reincarnation story from the GOAT Fumi Yoshinaga... it doesn't get much better than this

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well that was the most depressing collection of short stories I've read in a while.

I guess I'd preordered this during a batch where I wasn't paying enough attention to the summaries; I don't think I would've ordered it if I'd realized what it actually is. Since I had it in hand, though, I sat down and read through it, especially once I reminded myself that I'd bought it because it was written by the same mangaka as What Did You Eat Yesterday?

The problem now is that my plans to slowly read and collect the rest of that series are fizzling out, because I disliked nearly everything about this book. It makes me...concerned, I guess, about how the storytelling will progress in their other works.

There is not a single happy story in this collection. Well, okay, I guess the bookend one is supposed to be the modern day happiness for the title characters, who meet in various forms across history and experience tragic ends. But even their love story was pretty depressing. "What did I even like about her?" Amane muses, unable to pinpoint why he'd married his wife, alongside some emotionally charged remembrances of the male classmate he remembered every detail about his crush on decades earlier, to the extent where he's still kept an incomplete set of manga that friend had given him.

He's pleased when his wife, Tamaki, decides to accept their daughter as she is, even if that means she ends up falling in love with a woman. But he doesn't tell Tamaki about his own youthful experiences or why that open-mindedness would be important to him. And when they tell their daughter the story of how they met, they describe it as "boring," because...it is, really. It's fine to meet in a mundane way. But closing it out as some sort of inevitability of fate, based on their names and possibly their past lives (?), was just...not as compelling as I suppose it was meant to be.

The other stories include:

Two girls named Tamaki and Amane who knew each other at school and occasionally wrote each other over the years, once they each got married. One was married to a much older man for whom she was supposed to produce an heir...surprisingly, that turned out to be the nicer story, because he grew to truly care for her and refused to divorce her or take a mistress when she turned out to be barren. The other woman's handsome childhood friend husband turned out to be a jerk who moved on to another woman basically as soon as she and their children died.

A woman named Tamaki whose entire family died, and who'd broken off a relationship with her boyfriend to take care of her ill stepsister. She ends up befriending an abused little boy, Amane, who lives in her building, whose mother shouts at and hits him but who is still somehow treated like a "loving" mother who is just stressed out by having to take care of him. There's a nice scene where Tamaki helps to repair their relationship and find a good doctor and hospital for the boy, who dies right away, followed by her dying as well.

Two WW2 soldiers who reunite after the war and run a moonshine and coffee black market business until Amane finds out that Tamaki, his old squad leader, is the guy who'd taken off with his wife while he (Amane) was presumed dead or lost in combat. In this case, it's actually kind of worse for Tamaki, who was a cheery, nice guy whom the wife seemed to like a lot more than her husband, once she was trapped into reuniting with him...

(I'd thought that one might be BL, because of the summary, but nope.)

And finally, a story that was starting to perk up a little...tragic childhood friends who'd been in love with each other for years but could never be together because the beautiful Amane had been married off to a wealthy man who abused her. He'd ended up attacking Tamaki out of jealousy, so Tamaki killed him. Amane's son tries to fight Tamaki as a result, but he dies...not from any fight, just from an illness. Then Amane and Tamaki live together for a bit and have a touching confession, after which she tries to stab him in his sleep and then kills herself instead because she was a wicked woman who'd never loved her husband.

Yeah.

Not keeping this one.

[Lucsbooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must not know how to read because somehow I missed the part in the synopsis where it explicitly said that this was a short story collection.

I started "Tamaki & Amane" and loved it so much that I stopped until I was in the right mood to enjoy it the most.

The first story in this book follows a middle age couple who catch their daughter kissing a girl and that leads the father to reminisce on his first love: a crush he had on his school friend that believed in him and pushed him to apply to a school that he did not think he had a chance at since he had 3 younger siblings that his parents needed to care of too.

I loved seeing men having complex feelings and talking about their children until one of them had to ruin it by sexualising girls and how that connected to what happens to his daughter and the way men feel free to harass her now that she is a teen. I loved seeing a believable family fight and how he was able to give his daughter a life unaffected by the same financial burdens that he had to weather at her age, and how he takes an active part in his household.

Too often, parents are relegated to secondary characters who are at best supportive, at worst antagonists in the protagonist's lives, so it was refreshing to see them be complex characters with personal inner struggles while part of a family unit, particularly the father. I never thought I would say this, but I really enjoyed being inside that man's head as he tried to be there for his daughter as she was experiencing life, love and heartbreak for the first time in her life while being a hormonal teenager and him having to help keep peace in his family.

The only complaint I had about this story was that he never spoke to his wife about none of the things he was thinking of. Only much later I realised that they were supposed to be the happy ending because from here on out…heartbreak.

In the second story, there we meet two school girls from different economic backgrounds who maintain their friendship after they marry. I thought this had a "The Handmaiden" sapphic vibe to it, but it ended up being more focused on female friendship through the injustices of live that women have to deal with. The greatest betrayal, though, was after making me like the husband, ending the story with him making such a misogynistic and callous comment.

By the third story, I wanted to personally fight the author because how can I keep falling for it? And then I fell again. Author, when I catch you…

The book ends with the most tragic crushes to enemies story which leads me to believe Fumi wrote this as a revenge for something that someone else did to them. So why was I the one suffering???

Fumi, I'm in your walls. When you hear a noise at night, it's not the wind, it's me, and you should RUN.

Thank you to NetGalley and Yen Press for this DRC.

[K · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I received a free ARC of this title from Yen Press via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

I love Fumi Yoshinaga's work. I've been a fan since her Antique Bakery series became available in English. I enjoy her skill at drawing great facial expressions while still maintaining an economy of linework. During the past few years I've been limited to reading her "What Did You Eat Yesterday?" series which is great, but it's like having a long-term relationship with a comfort read that's still being published.

Tamaki & Amane reminded me that yes, this is the same author who is capable of making me feel like someone ripped my heart out in one story and then cover me with a warm fuzzy blanket in the next. Each story has its charms, especially the more tragic ones where you know things are probably not going to turn out well. Yoshinaga certainly knows how to use a twist in the story.

Since this appears to be a single-volume story, I think this is a great volume to get new readers into Yoshinaga's work. I appreciate how Yen Press added translation notes at the end of the volume. It's absolutely possible to enjoy the volume without reading the notes, and I'm glad they did not go with adding distracting notes right on the relevant pages, but it's nice to have the option to learn something new while reading manga. I'm not sure if Yoshinaga still has much of a backlog of work not yet available in English, but I do hope her out of print titles will get to have new official releases in English again.

[Siina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tamaki & Amane is a collection of short stories by Fumi Yoshinaga. All the stories revolve round characters called Tamaki and Amane in different times and places. I really liked this approach, although there's some quality differences mostly plot-wise. The art is surely stable of course, since we're talking about Yoshinaga here. The idea is that love takes different shapes and the most I enjoyed the story about the parents and their daughter who's fallen in love with her female friend. The other one I liked a lot was the one set in the Meiji period about the two good friends. Both of these are realistic and depict women well and it's easy to understand them. The stories are oddly melancholic, but it fits the manga well. The "grown woman" approach is refreshing and highlights the necessity of imagery of diverse women.

The art looks nice and recognizable, which is always great. Perhaps less stories would've worked better though, since at times the balance is slightly off. Still, we need more manga like this for the sake of humanity. Yoshinaga is good at making us understand even if we don't agree.

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This manga is a collection of short stories that all focus on the relationships between two characters named Tamaki and Amane. Some stories are far more interesting than others, but most of them pull on the heartstrings. Pretty much all of the stories are sad in tone or bittersweet. The unfortunate issue that most of the stories suffer from is that the dialogue gets to be waaaaay too much at times. Why is 70% of the page getting taken up by text? Because some sections are so text-heavy, you get bored with the actual story. The writing is pretty solid for every story, it's a complete short story, and all have satisfying conclusions. The art style was great and consistent throughout the entire manga, which is good.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!

[ashes ➷ · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5)

It's weird how much this simultaneously feels like Yoshinaga branching out and also getting deeper into her bag. On the one hand, she used to be nothing more than a yaoi mangaka with an uncharacteristically pretty art style and an occasional foray into historical fiction, but on the other, it's pretty obvious how her career trajectory has led her to writing about modern gay life contrasted against stories of men and women in various historical eras in Japan. This is a lot more ambitious than her other work, but that makes me happy; it feels like she's moving up in the world and she deserves to. This was a really fun, well-rounded, simple and enjoyable read, even if my first pass didn't reveal any deep truths. I'll definitely return.

[Laura (crofteereader) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I genuinely had no idea this was going to be a series of short stories (but looking at the synopsis, I can’t fathom how I missed that). The style was a little goofy - with lots of big facial expressions that didn’t fit the more serious tone. I think the first couple should have been more prevalent (maybe little mini chapters throughout?) to kind of focus things.

My favorite pair was the woman with the neighbor child. It was wholesome and fun and then devastatingly sad. But the others didn’t really sell me on their connection.

{Thank you Yen Press for the complementary copy in exchange for my honest review; all thoughts are my own}

[Valérie Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

C'est un one-shot fort intéressant pour découvrir le trait délicat et expressif de Fumi Yoshinaga, tout comme son talent pour les histoires aux destins qui s'entrelacent. À travers les époques, Edo, Meiji, fin de la 2e guerre et notre temps, on découvre dans le désordre les incarnations de Tamaki et Amané. Ils sont homme, femme, enfant, mais leur lien étrange traverse les âges. Et toujours ils ont cette soif de se retrouver, on comprend pourquoi un peu plus loin dans l'ouvrage.

Ces cinq chapitres sont très doux, avec une touche de tristesse parfois, toujours bien justifiée. On reste proche de l'humain, en exposant la complexité de ses sentiments. Un superbe récit.

[Sucre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars - the first story in this collection was the real stand out for me. i liked each following one a little less, with the final story being a bit too soapy and melodramatic for me. there's some clunky writing in some of the chapters (mostly awkward info dumps), but there's also heart in each story and good character writing. i felt for many of these characters, and i appreciate fumi yoshinaga for writing this kind of thing as it feels unique from a lot of manga being translated right now.

[Eve Rever de livre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agréable surprise ce petit " recueil de nouvelle " ? Oui et non, le format est particulier car on gravite autour de 2 noms : Tamaki et Amane. On les suit avec des époques et des histoires différentes. J'ai été touché par quasi tout finalement donc on est pas sur un recueil hyper joie et bonheur. Il y a de beaux messages mais ce sont des histoires qui sont tristes.
J'ai été un poil déçue de la première histoire qui est intéressante mais pas développé ...pourquoi ?
Bref, si tu cherches des histoires de relations au sens large du terme avec des époques différentes, tu es servi !

[Henli · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of short stories exploring various forms of love - family, friendship, romance - all involving various versions of Tamaki and Amane. It also touches on some LGBTQ issues. The stories are quite interesting and often bittersweet, with some being more tragic than others.

I thought this was a really interesting read. It's emotional and thought provoking and, while the pacing can get a bit weird from time, it doesn't really feel rushed.

[Beau Manglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am reviewing an ARC I received via NetGalley.

In this series of short stories, Yoshinaga flaunts her skill at conveying emotionally deep slices of life within a limited number of pages, and her readers benefit. Though separated in setting and time, each of these stories revolves around a Tamaki and an Amane, though who they are to each other-- sergeant and soldier, terminally ill woman and the kid who lives next door, or classmates at a meiji-era girl's school, for example-- changes with each tale. Regardless of the setup, each story explores the relationship between two people who feel some kind of connection, but must also reckon with social friction in maintaining that connection.

Yoshinaga is a skilled mangaka who I have read for years and this standalone volume is another lovely entry into her body of work. I am impressed at the depth of characterization she is able to achieve with characters who we only know for a brief period of time. Both her writing and art help to achieve this; as always, her characters' expressions are remarkably expressive, including more subtle emotions which might normally be difficult to convey in manga style. Her writing allows for characters to have real flaws and blind spots, but she maintains a empathetic perspective that also allows us to see the positive in them.

In the final story in the volume, we get a small hint at what threads these stories (very lightly) together. One iteration of Tamaki vows to Amane that no matter how many lives they lead, he will continue to find her, and help her see the value in life and living (or something to that effect.) The stories all stand well on their own, but this little thread did not go amiss, and helps create a nice frame for the volume as a whole.

I would highly recommend this to both young adults and adults-- it may be a nice way for adults unfamiliar with manga to dip their toes into a few stories without making a series-long commitment. The subject matter of the stories may also be a little more interesting for slightly older audiences, though there is nothing inappropriate that would put it out of the range of teens.

[Juushika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovers are reincarnated as different people in markedly different relationships and circumstances each time. A familiar and engaging trope, given a subdued treatment, this is content with mundanaity and a small scale even when star-crossed. I like the effect, but it raises the question, so what? The unfixed characterization heavily influenced by circumstance, the restricted plot movement, the quietude and understated melodrama is thoughtful but doesn't go anywhere or do much.

[MaguiWorld · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesante, por momentos un poco denso y poco atractivo pero las historias y sus conexiones fueron lindas de leer. Creo que es una historia que toca algunos temas interesantes pero por momento se tornaba un poco denso de leer y poco atractivo en lineas generales.

Gracias Yen Press por el ARC que leí a través de NetGalley a cambio de una reseña honesta.

[Sophy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of mini-stories, each one unique and carrying its own deeper meaning. While the stories are short, many have a darker tone and offer something to reflect on. The art perfectly matches the mood of each story, enhancing the emotional impact. If you enjoy quick reads with thought-provoking or eerie themes, this is a great pick.

[Ije the Devourer of Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely manga with a set of short stories about two people called Tamaki and Amane.

Each story is a different pair of characters but the have the same name. This is a lovely book of storytelling and I enjoyed reading it.

Copy provided via Netgalley

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this! It's an interesting set of five stories featuring relationships/love between two characters named Tamaki and Amane. My favorite was the middle story featuring the single woman and the neighbor kid she brings comfort to as they both face serious illness.

[Frogg · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always Yoshinaga is really good at what she does.

[De Loves to Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best manga I’ve read this year. I really enjoyed the storytelling and the characters.