When you work from home, it's easy to get loose about time. I imagine there are quite a few people whose lifestyles have shifted toward that of a night person. I have therefore selected three manga masterpieces for such folks.
"Kimi wa Hokago Insomnia" (Insomniacs after school) by Makoto Ojiro is a unique rom-com in which the two protagonists, a boy and a girl, are both insomniacs. The manga is serialized in the Shukan Big Comic Spirits weekly manga magazine and has been compiled in three volumes so far. Both versions are published by Shogakukan Inc.
The story is set in Nanao, Ishikawa Prefecture. High school student Ganta Nakami happens to go to the room of the school's discontinued astronomy circle one day and finds a classmate, Isaki Magari, secretly taking a nap there. Sharing the same problem with insomnia, the two students revive the astronomy circle and become drawn to taking photos of stars in the night sky.
Ganta and Isaki can't fall asleep on their own, but they can sleep soundly when they stick together. Night is the prime time of their youth, and their yawns look infectious. The manga is rife with Ojiro's commitment to detail in depicting random gestures and body language, which was also notable in the author's previous work "Neko no Otera no Chion-san" (Chion-san of the temple of the cats), also published by Shogakukan,
"I was an insomniac myself until around the time I finished junior high school," Ojiro said. "I was always sleepy during the day and came alive after dark. I liked looking out of the window of my bedroom, hearing frogs croaking and watching something flickering far away."
Ojiro said the charm of staying up late is the feeling of doing something a little bit naughty, adding, "When you're the only person staying up [around you] and find on the radio, for example, that other people are also awake, you feel more intimacy toward them than you do at other times, right?"
I see. Night-owling is a good fit with rom-coms in that respect.
"Yofukashi-no-uta" (The song about staying up late) by Kotoyama, published by Shogakukan, also features an insomniac protagonist, a junior high school student by the name of Ko Yamori. The manga is serialized in the Shukan Shonen Sunday manga magazine, with up to three volumes available in compilations.
As Ko wanders about town at night, a mysterious beauty called Nazuna Nanakusa appears in front of him and correctly says that he can't sleep because he's not content with his day. "Why don't you stay up late until you can be satisfied with today?" she says.
Nazuna is a vampire. Ko wants to become a vampire, too, but he can only do that if he falls in love with Nazuna, even though he's never been in love before. Nazuna also happens to be extremely shy about romance, so their relationship makes no progress at all.
"I used to often go out for a walk during the night. That experience may be linked to this work," said Kotoyama, who also finds it difficult to go to sleep.
Nazuna's words "why don't you stay up late until you can be satisfied with today?" likewise come from the author's experience.
"One of the good things about nighttime is that there's no one around you outside. That alone makes me feel happy, because I don't like places where there are many people," Kotoyama said. A vampire who flies in the night sky probably symbolizes this feeling.
"Maya-san no Yofukashi" (THE NIGHT OWL WITCH) by Shin Hotani strangely evokes your empathy even though the manga, complete in three volumes published from Coamix Inc., is just about nightly online chats between Maya-san, a self-proclaimed witch, and Mameyama, a mangaka wannabe. They are always oddly hyper because of drowsiness, which I think is the essense of staying up late.
One thing that's changed since the novel coronavirus outbreak is that many people have rediscovered the tranquility inherent to the night.
"It felt strange that everyone was having the same experience," Ojiro said. "I contacted people I usually don't meet. It gave me a good chance to catch up with their lives. I thought it was a good opportunity for me to think about ties with other people."
Staying up late, which used to be a "bad thing" to do, may become part of the new normal. Yawn.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
