Maiden Railways

鉄道少女 / Tetsudō Shōjo #1

by Asumiko Nakamura

All aboard! This book is your ticket to seven romances - from confessions in Iriuda to proposals in Enoshima and all points in between.

Genres: Manga, Romance, Comics, Short Stories, LGBT, Graphic Novels, Josei

Kindle Edition

First published January 31, 2011

About the author

Asumiko NAKAMURA (中村明日美子) is a Japanese manga artist.
Born in 1979, she is one of Japan's hidden gems. The artist has penned a lot of titles since 2002 and has reached critical acclaim for her sensitive protrayals of romantic narratives featuring a wide range of characters - men and women, young and old. Nakamura has worked in a range of genres for an equally broad range of audinces winning recognition in every category.

Reviews

[Aleksandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely collection of short stories connected via trains and railways, the stories are about human connections and relationships. My favorites are He Lives in Iriuda (bitter sweet story about teens in love) and Overpass Crossing (sapphic story featuring disaster lesbians).
The art is cute and I adore the colored pages! Asumiko Nakamura's work is always a delight to read.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This is an enjoyable, if often bittersweet, collection of shorts surrounding characters at a train station. Though our time with each story is brief, there's enough substance to make each story satisfying. The clever way they all come together at the end was also a really nice touch.

[Laura (ローラ) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads like a compilation of 1-act plays... each story portrating conclusion without conflict. I feel like Nakamura's writing might be a bit more cerebral than would work in short fragmented stories like this. Hopefully we'll see more longer publications in English in the future. I did think the story "Savarin Thursdays" was probably the strongest piece of this curation.

[Hadia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fact that I read this while on a train made the experience all the more enjoyable. However, having said that, I only really liked 2 stories out of the entire collection. This sadly means I didn't enjoy the majority of this Manga, hence the rating. The first story was the most action-packed, while 'Savarin Thursdays' was the coziest and most emotional, and also my favourite!

[Jillian -always aspiring- · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories are a little confusing (I might need to reread them), but the background of the railway as a central point was a nice idea to tie all the stories together. It’s definitely worth checking out if you enjoy manga short-story collections.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short manga about love and trains. The greatest romance in here is between the author and the Odakyu line, but I really liked the final chapter that ties all the storylines together. I started this year with trains so it makes sense to end with them too, right?

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sweet collection of romance short stories, loosely connected by a train line. Hopefully Denpa publishes the rest, as there are 3 more volumes that continue some of the plot threads.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cute read with tales of romance centered around the Odakyu rail line, it has plenty of positives with simple and sweet art, as well as lovely vignettes that rather run the gamut of relationships. I was particularly fond of the cake shop tale.

That said, I'm beginning to question whether or not my problem with Nakamura's previous release in English, Utsubora, was due clunky translation or if perhaps she just writes really awkward dialogue. The translators are different, but the dialogue in Maiden Railways once again doesn't come out naturally or particularly coherently. With the simple art style, it can be hard to figure out what's going on when the dialogue isn't doing its part. Although, at least some of the problem does appear to be too literal of translation, so it might need to be shared blame. It's a bit of a shame though, because with a bit more finesse this could be a better book overall.

[Sparkling Lemonade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chinese title: 鐵道少女漫畫

Overall 4-4.5 ⭐️

Both the Japanese and Chinese ver were published in 2011 and out of print, I just read the scan online. A collection of six slice of life stories revolving around 小田急 Odakyū railway lines and train stations along the way, mostly BG couples and a bit GL then a final story of them all appearing…

浪漫避行にのっとって / 攻略浪漫之旅
A high school girl has been caught twice stealing from passengers on the train, and just failed third time stealing from a dark hair man in glasses pretending to be sleeping. He told her to spy on a lady 美華 (his wife) in another cart who’s traveling with a light hair flamboyant man 秋仁 (his younger brother).

The two pairs racing on the train from Tokyo to Hakone on the Romancecar got confronted with the truth - the husband’s too busy working OT at game company and doesn’t pay enough attention to the wife, so she’s testing him by pretending to go to Hakone onsen with the younger brother, the train station staff who caught the girl thief previously.

彼の住むイリューダ / 他所居住的Iriuda
A girl 留美香 is about to move to Germany with her dad and she’s waiting at a small town station 入生田駅 for a boy 後藤 that she had crush on since year one, she rubbed her lipstick on his gym tshirt and he dyed it red and had been wearing it like that since.

留美香 She just broke up with her boyfriend 新田 of two months that she didn’t have real feeling for, the ex-boyfriend threw away her letter to the other boy about today’s meeting as revenge. Another female classmate 里穗 went chasing after the ex-boyfriend 新田 to comfort him… The kind railway station chief saw everything and told the late arrived boy 後藤 to jump on a rapid train to chase after the girl 留美香…

立體交差 の駅 / 立體交錯的停車場
An older blonde hair girl just got dumped by her long dark hair gf because she just got married and about to go on honey moon in Greece. The train at 厚木 station came and hit her phone and duffle bag filled with the ex-gf’s belongings, while they were arguing on the phone.

A tall short hair 瑞穗 sporty high school girl picked up the bag and threw it back to her. This girl is baseball pitcher at school and just rejected a younger teammate’s confession and observing the older couple’s trouble while contemplating about the tough lesbian journey…

The dark hair cool girl finally came to the station to find the matching ring that blonde hair girl couldn’t find for a few days. The sporty girl 瑞穗 got the ring back from station’s lost and found and gave to her, she also comforted the blonde girl and they got together in the next story…

青と白のリーム / 藍與白的光暈
The story of the blonde hair girl and sporty girl continues, the sporty girl lost at a baseball match because she got so nervous having the blonde hair girl coming to cheer for her. It’s good to have supportive gf waiting at the end of long tiring game.

木曜日のサバラン / 星期四的薩瓦蘭蛋糕
A working man walked into a patisserie to buy Savarin cake that his wife requested, he follows an older gentleman to enter the back room filled with a large model train park. It’s only open on Thursdays and a few train enthusiasts would gather and control their favorite train models.

The working man found a sanctuary from work and marriage, it’s his secret hideout that he doesn’t want to tell the wife and pretend to be OTing. The grandpa (owner) passed away and his granddaughter came here instead, she has a bit of crush on the working man… The working man’s wife was suspicious that he may be cheating after 7 years or marriage and followed him here with their daughter 綾香…

This one story was expanded into three volumes 君曜日1,2,3 published in 2013, 2015, 2017. Luckily the young girl and working man didn’t end up in an affair due to a boy from her cram school stepping in…

夜を重ねる / 重疊的夜晚
A dark short hair girl bumps into a blonde long hair girl at Enoshima station where it look like an underwater Dragon Palace, as she missed the last train. The dark short hair girl found a bag of girl stuff at the bf’s home and exploded think it’s the reason he’s not marrying her after dating for three years.

The blonde long hair girl remembers walking on the train track after getting off the last train, she was dumped by the bf via a text cause he likes someone else, and threw away everything in a duffle bag. She’s been trying to find the bag in the station’s garbage bin but couldn’t…

Of course it’s the same guy 鈴木 they are talking about, but in different timeline, the blonde long hair girl already passed away five years ago after being hit by a train, she was still wondering around until finally finding closure and going to heaven… He’s kept her stuff after the train staff delivered to his home. The guy and black hair girl put flower at the spot where the blonde girl died, he finally proposed to the current gf.

ある休日 / 某個假日
The station master from first story goes to work from Shinjuku station to Iriuda station, on the way he passed by the characters from the previous stories, happy ending~

[TheOASG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maiden Railways is a collection of one-shots from prolific creator Asumiko Nakamura, themed all around romance. Ever get involved with a dude who believes his little brother’s potentially stealing his wife away while you’re pickpocketing? Met a tall girl with a rocket arm after your bag falls onto the train tracks amidst arguing on the phone with your ex? Have some concerns about your husband working overtime every Thursday? Had a talk with a stranger after wondering if your lover loves you enough to stop stalling and propose already?

Well, a couple of these definitely hasn’t happened to you, specifically! But in Maiden Railways, it sure happens, so hop on. All aboard the romance car!

Maiden Railways has a couple of romance cars. From Asumiko’s afterword, she checked out the Odakyu, the types of trains, and a couple stations as research for this project. And in this manga, a few characters mention the romance car like it’s one of those legends, as it relates to their situation. It’s unique in how all these stories take place at specific parts of a train. You’ll have a story set inside a moving train; one at the station; one at a bakery where people interact with a model train set; and one exactly at the train tracks. The romance aspect plays a part in each story in one way or another, whether it’s super personal or even one that’s quite distant.

The artwork is mostly on-point. There are times where the style looks sharp and clean, and then other times where a character is drawn like an ant that will wreck you. But certain moments express without words how a character feels, and it’s drawn so memorably it sticks out a ton. All comics obviously need both art and words to match each other, but for one-shots even moreso; with limited pages you’ll need whatever you have to communicate what you want. This manga does exactly that. Just, no action sequences or we’ll be seeing an unusual style of avant-garde art.

I’d say there are a couple of stories that happen to stand out or at least be interesting. The very first one hits you: high school girl happens to be a pickpocket and gets caught on the train. Instead of getting busted, she’s told by a man to go a specific part of the train and write words on a woman’s forehead. She’s stopped when a man in a Hawaiian shirt arrives. When she goes back, she learns that Hawaiian shirt is that man’s little brother. And that little brother appears to be with his big brother’s wife.

This is totally what I signed up for!

As you can expect, that story’s more complex than that. And most of these stories are (except the last one, but instead it’s a most appreciated epilogue), which makes sense if it involves loving someone. Romances can always come down to “I love you” and then they live happily-ever-after, but that’s usually unrealistic. There are human emotions at play, ranging from innocent misunderstanding to being an absolute scumbag. In this collection we get that not just from high school age kids, but from adults in their 30s, or those married with a kid. So Maiden Railways focuses on those types of relationships, which is a good call.

That all said, some of these stories will resonate with you, and some won’t. There’s one story where the romance between two girls is very sweet and cute��� and there seems to be an age gap. One involves a high school girl on a girls’ baseball team and the other is an adult. It’s unclear how old the adult is (college age or late 20’s) so it might be ok, but if you’re leery of even that, how they got together might not matter.

From a structural standpoint, ”Night and Night” was disappointing. It did seem like the story involved a ghost…maybe a friend…after it got to the reveal, things were figured out — and then a time skip! I admittedly got lost. That sucks because the chapter and lettering for the name was great. One of the characters in a long skirt misses the last train, collapses on the ground and pouts, then lounges like she’s sitting on her couch watching TV. And lastly, this could be due to when and where it was serialized, but was a little disappointed it was just male/female and female/female romances. There’s a variety of stories in here so no male/male one was a bit surprising.

There’s little doubt Maiden Railways won’t engage you. From Asumiko’s clear passion of trains, the characters that have these stories inside or outside the trains, to the art style for each being either pretty or hilarious, this is a fine read. If you’re in need of a title that’s refreshing in how it approaches romances, you’ll want to check this one out.

- Justin

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wasn't initially sold on this, but Nakamura has a way of slowly, quietly winning you over. Some of the character design feels a little bit repetitive - the husband in the first story looks exactly like Sajou from her other well-known work, Classmates - and sometimes it was initially a little difficult to tell what was going on in the stories. But there's an emotional, literary weight to the storytelling that I usually don't see in this type of format.

I'm not a big fan of infidelity as a narrative drive, and three of the seven stories in this collection do tease at that - but in every case, it's a misunderstanding, the "easy" answer to relationship questions that are far more complex.

The sixth story was a little odd, and quite different from the others, so its twist caught me off-guard. Pretty stunning. And I liked the narrative framework of the seventh story, drawing all these strangers' lives together.

This collection is a love story, really, to a train line that was already fading out of memory even as Nakamura was writing. That adds a poignant nostalgia that threads through each story, adding depth and making these transitory points in people's lives even more impactful.

[Ghostea · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed Nakamura's art style and the short story "Savarin Thursdays" makes the collection worth checking out. However, I feel that these interwoven stories just don't consistently hit the mark, and moments that are meant to be profound reflections on the characters fall slightly short.

Certainly, there is some appeal in romancing railways and how they work as the background to key moments in one's life in major cities; saying goodbye, greetings, chance meetings etc. But it just did not work for me as well as other short releases that take a similar approach to exploring the nuances of daily life.

I still need to read more of their work, Utsubora: The Story of a Novelist is a phenomenal read. Admittedly, this may be in part why this fell short of my expectations for my second book from Nakamura.

[Aurakinski · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was really confusing to read. Mostly because of the page layout and putting speech bubbles in weird places so it didn't flow well. I often had to read several pages all over again to understand what was happening and what the context was. The characters' movements were often weirdly drawn, which didn't help. I wonder if this was one of the manga creator's first works? I've read others by her and liked them a lot more.

I do appreciate the basic concepts of this book though. It's a collection of short stories, and they all center around trains and romance. Random encounters and brief glimpses into people's lives. I think the story with the "dragon palace" station was the one that got to me the most. Very touching.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seven short romance stories united by the theme of trains. You don't need to be a railfan to enjoy this collection, which mostly tackles new and young romances. I found Nakamura's loose and flowing art style attractive in its own right, but it sometimes contrasts with the seriousness of the stories themselves. I found the first story a little clunky as a result. Thankfully, the tales improve (or maybe I just adjusted to Nakamura's tempo) as the book progresses, and there are a couple of stories that really sit well.

[Amanda Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful collection of short stories, each connecting (in a way) at the train station. I'm sure there's deeper meaning there that I'm not really sure how to describe but Nakamura's art style and way of storytelling just hits differently. I loved this manga even though I'm not usually a fan of short story collections. There was even (I think?) a small appearance of Hikaru Kusakabe from "Classmates" at the end (at least I'm gonna believe that). Anyway, I'm rambling but I loved this and hope you do too.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

mixed feelings about this one. i loved
-nakamura's expressive and palpably wistful illustrations
-the approach; centering a volume's worth of stories around a particular train (or, in one exception, just trains and the people who love them) created a sense of purpose and cohesion between the stories.
-nakamura's character-writing; each new character felt easy to get acquainted to and like they had their own inner worlds, just like real people do.
however, many of the stories just didn't gel with me. i would definitely be interested to read more of nakamura's work.

[Valérie Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quelle douceur dans ces courts récits qui se rejoignent autour d'un train et des gens qui l'utilisent. Il y a une cohérence entre les récits, ils ne sont jamais répétitifs, explorant plusieurs formes de relations affectives (et de liens avec le train en plus)! J'ai adoré ce court ouvrage, il m'a fait du bien à lire.

[BazReadsBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories was a lovely light read, which isn't always the case for Nakamura's works. Utilizing trains as a background to tie them together was also incredibly sweet.
The gloss color pages sprinkled throughout the physical release offered a nice touch not often seen in English manga releases.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming and sometimes bittersweet romantic stories set along the Odakyu train line, drawn in Nakamura's Art-Deco-meets-shoujo style. Favorites: girls meeting cute in "Overpass Crossing," the twist in "Night After Night," and every single expression on the toddler's face in "Savarin Thursdays."

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a sucker for a story on a train. I don’t know exactly why. I’ve not had a life full of train travel, but it’s something I think about far too often. The short “Savarin Thursdays” was my favorite story in this book and the art was absolutely fantastic.

[Boujee · Rating 2 out of 5]

eh, not my cup of tea, started skimming the stories after a while

[Niki Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love her style, but the stories were a little hit or miss.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

A light and fun addition to Nakamura's work available in English. I loved the way the epilogue ties all the stories together.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

No me esperaba que me fuera a gustar tanto 😂

[tanvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

the premise was super cute and i loved the stories but they were a little confusing. still enjoyed it though <3

[Progya]

This book was lovely. My favorites were He Lives in Iruida, Savarin Thursday and Overpass Crossing. Overpass Crossing is one of the cutest f/f comics I've read this year.

[kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really, really liked this.

[Shelby (bookshelfworthy) · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up

[Beth Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

So cute!! I was going to list all the stories I liked best, but then I'd just be listing all of them 🤷‍♀️

A+ Highly recommend if you like cute stories and trains. And savarin.

[Becca · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like this as much as Classmates. While the artwork is what drew me in before, it felt sloppy in this book. The stories were too short for any real character connection. Just a meh for me.