muse ✨'s manga / #amnesia(6)

Two years into their relationship, Takahiro is in an accident and loses all but the earliest memories of the man he's built his life with. Everyone agrees not to tell Takahiro about what their relationship truly was, and so he struggles to build a friendship with someone he barely knows, frustrated by his missing two years but refusing to be given spoilers. SPOILERS: I appreciate that he never gets his memories back but comes to love his partner a second time.

After his best friend loses his memories, a young man struggles to contain the feelings he's always had for him. Two coworkers with mutual crushes end up babysitting for a week and finally hook up. :-D

Told differently, this could have been a third the length and ten times as powerful. It suffers from poor pacing and storytelling, which is a shame because the concept for this story is fantastic: A man loses his memory following a suicide attempt and lives with two brothers at a temple while he tries to remember who he is. Sounds great, but this was slapstick meta comedy (complete with Nirvana references - like, the band) drawn in chibi art for 75% of the work, and 25% a heart-wrenching, moving story I wanted to love. Unfortunately, the author was - according to her notes - allowed to take her time and draw whatever she felt like whenever she felt like it, and it shows. There's a wasted chapter about animal bentos and a heavy use of internet/gaming humor throughout that kept me from ever getting into the world the author had created OR caring about the characters. (OH, and in case you forgot, Mic is an airhead without his memory, and here’s this manga to remind you of that yet again through yet another anecdote where he forgets how to do something.) There is one sequence, showing what happened to Mic and Miku following her mother’s death, shown through the accumulation of trash in the apartment. It’s haunting and lovely, and knowing the author is capable of that sort of storytelling makes me wonder why the editors let this story be…this. Even the story’s climax, when the main character finally realizes he's been dead since before the story began, is laughed off a few pages later. It stripped the meaning for me. I can’t recommend this. But I suppose if you like comedy injected into a story that deals with not-funny topics (losing the man you love, surviving the death of someone who had become family, believing you caused the death of a child, and trying to take your own life) this might be the one for you. This didn’t have to be harrowing, but it could’ve been so much better.

Years after the head trauma that caused him to lose part of his memory, Ryouta is still being cared for by his childhood friend Acchan, who keeps having dreams about him. The final chapter is more about Sora, who bullied Ryouta out of jealousy. I’d love a story about him.

Natsuno is dismayed that Ui, his best friend from childhood, has lost all memory of him after an accident. In a ploy for a place to crash, he tells Ui they used to be lovers. But was Ui telling the truth about not remembering him?

Tomohisa cares for the childlike version of his lover who lost his memory following an accident. (aka The one with the goldfish) I want to like this, but I don’t think it explored psychology in a genuine way and I was a little bothered by the dual relationship. I would’ve preferred it if Tomohisa just took care of Yuuta while waiting for Yuki.