After seeing glowing reviews on the internet for Tegami Bachi, I decided to dive in and read the manga. Tegami Bachi by far lives up to its reputation and deserves more attention than it has received. Allegedly the corresponding anime adaptation wasn’t great, but maybe I’ll review the anime later.
The main reason why the manga is fantastic is due to its beautiful artwork and characters. There is nothing to not love about the artwork, from the breathtaking scenery to the dynamic and gorgeous characters. But, I most appreciated how many of the pages were on black paper with everything drawn in as white since it captures the manga’s themes so eloquently, and not many mangas employ this art style.
I would heavily recommend that people take the time to read this manga. It is a story of love, friendship, family, loss, ambition. The story follows our protagonist Lag Seeing as he sets out to become the Head Bee (a letter delivery person) and find the truth about his mother’s abduction by the government.
[Spoilers Below]
There can be many similarities to be drawn between Tegami Bachi and Fullmetal Alchemist:
Full Metal Alchemist
Tegami Bachi
Power System
Alchemy
Heart
Parents
Mother died
Mother abducted by government
Origin
Born of immortal father
Born comprised of spirit fragments during the flicker
Faustian Bargain
Revived mother using alchemy
Shared soul with spirit amber to gain power
Occupation
State Alchemist — military member
Letter Bee- Gov postal worker fighting monsters while traveling
Government
Secrets about Hermuncli
Secret about origin of Sun
Not to say that these stories are anything alike; narratively, they are vastly different. Patterns like this can be found all over shounen, suggesting similar prototypes when building a grandiose story. A young boy with a tragic backstory and unique ability in a magical world joins a government agency and defeats a foe/completes a quest. This pattern is all over the place. However, the similarities between these shows are deeper because most shounen shows don’t involve fighting an apparently corrupt government from the inside. Well… there also is Attack on Titan, which shares many of these similarities. It is hard to say precisely what makes this type of story so great. Obviously, a quest to learn the truth in a system against them while taking the moral high ground is clearly a great foundation of a story.
Short review for a short LGBTQ romance manga. The artwork was gorgeous, and the romance between Kasumi and Kyousuke was heartfelt. Definitely worth the read if you are interested in gay romances.
Apart from your typical love tropes, this manga explores two additional themes: what it means to be happy and how our careers can interfere with our romantic lives. In the manga, Kyousuke pushes away Kasumi because he believes that Kasumi would be happier if he weren’t in a relationship with him — because societal norms growing up coerced him into thinking that gay relationships are somehow bad. It wasn’t until receiving a love confession from Kasumi and advice from his boss did Kyousuke decide to follow his heart and proclaim his love to Kasumi.
Kyousuke is depicted as a workaholic, frequently pulling all-nighters for the agency that he works for. This ends up pushing him to burnout and being unhappy. Moreover, at the beginning of the manga, Yukiko is having an affair with Kasumi because she is unhappy with her husband because he is distant because of work. Yukiko believes that Kasumi could fill a hole in her life, but that never happens. Nothing that the manga says is deep in this regard. But, it is nice including this because our society has a romanticized view of workaholics. Yet, in reality, it is a self-destructive behavior that pushes the ones you love out of your life.
This was one of my first LGBTQ romance mangas apart from No.6. The entire thing was relatively straightforward. Not too memorable. It would be unfair to compare it to No.6 since No.6 had more volumes to do character and world development. For being a sort of romance story, it did a great job. The artwork was nice; however, it was a little confusing to follow– possibly bad translations.
The general premise of the manga is that the main character Shino falls in love with another mal high school student named Seryo. However, Toji Seryo is an oddball in that he dates people exactly one week before deciding whether or not he fell in love. Being popular with the ladies at his high school Seryo is nearly always dating someone — again, just for one week. In addition, Seryo always says yes to the first person to ask him out on Monday morning. The story starts with Shino asking Seryo out, and they have exactly one week to fall in love.
I really loved this manga! The gay love interest between Shion and Rat provides a strong emotional backbone for the story. However, the story is more than just a coming of age/romance story. At its core, this is a sci-fi manga that covers the dystopian city of No.6. The plot was concise, and the pacing of the manga was excellent. The core set of characters were diverse and played really well into the setting. On top of all that, the artwork in this manga is top beautiful making it an enjoyable series to read.
No.6, in my opinion, touched on some of the same themes as Full metal alchemist. The leaders of No.6 became blinded by power and the scientific inquiry that they committed grave crimes in the name of a pure ideal– protecting the Holy City. No.6’s city leaders killed hundreds, silenced dissidence, and intruded on citizens’ freedoms to protect the city. There was the mad scientist that killed thousands in the name of protecting the city. Similar to the themes in Fullmetal Alchemist, ideals that are taken way too far leads to destruction. Zealous devotion to either science or faith leads to bad things. In No.6, Shion teaches people that there is a third option between destroying the city and keeping the status quo — i.e., between Rat’s drive for revenge and the city officials, killing people of the West district and their citizens. It is with Shion at the end of the Manga that begins to rebuild the city with No.6 and the west district. Building a city that respects nature and does not discriminate against people outside of the city or against people who disagree with the government.
At the end of this story, I felt sad/happy/something, I almost broke into tears. It is sweet that Shion and Rat had a “Promise” kiss at the end, however, I wanted to see the two stay together and live happily ever after. Instead, Rat goes away to travel the unknown, and Shion is left in the city to rebuild. It was a happy ending, but… all that buildup for one kiss. I guess it leaves more for the imagination of what would happen in the future. I felt that way when I saw Gon and Killua separate at the end of the Hunger x Hunter anime. I know they would be reunited, but seeing them leave each other hurt.
Were Shion and Rat too different to remain together in the end? Rat said he was a wander, and Shion tended to cling to places. True, but Shion would have traveled, he said it himself, a life without you is a life not living. This manga was soo emotional, and the characters were captivating. Rat is the devious person with an air of mystery, and Shion being the pure sheltered person. Both characters change throughout the manga. Watching the mass murders changed Shion to the point where he ends up kills someone to save Rat. Rat changed from someone who only distrusts people to someone capable of love.
I think Shion and Rat’s characters bring up an interesting discussion about nature vs. nurture. Also, this can tie in with Dogkeeper’s character. These two were polar opposites in many regards. Shion being the light, having often naive ideals and outlook on the world. Shion was overly trusting of people, which put him in danger in West block. Was Shion “naive” way because of his upbringing? Being born in No.6, having a loving mother, never really facing any hardships, it is easy to say that this had a factor. However, even among the No.6 residents, Shion was particularly nice, even his mother was. It appears that most citizens in No.6 are nice in this way. What sets Shion apart from the rest of the citizens is that Shion is genuinely nice, where the rest of the citizens only put on a show facade of being good people. When he learned about the dark side of No.6, Shion fought it, where other residents just ignored it.
Rat is slow to trust, and he believes that the ends justify the means. Rat believes that destroying No.6 is worth it as long as it brings an end to the injustice that No.6 creates. Where Shion initially believed that bloodshed is always wrong no matter the cause. Rat doesn’t know exactly how to quantify Shion, often saying “is he even human” to himself. Maybe Rat believes that Shion is like an angel. Rat tries to protect Shion’s innocence. When at the correctional facility, Rat stops Shion from killing two different people. However, in the end, Shion ends up killing someone to save Rat’s life. The correctional facility changed Shion, after seeing a literal mountain of bodies, pain, and blood beyond imaginable, Shion changes. He doesn’t turn bitter and hate the world, but, he emerges as a man of action– proving to Rat that his words aren’t just shallow. At times throughout the Correctional facility, Shion almost kills himself. Once after seeing the mountain of bodies. Another time after Seeing the hologram of Safu and destroying Mother — the AI entity that NO.6 tried to create. After that misfortune, Shion became decisive and moved onwards. He stitched up Rat, and left an exploding building. Once rat was better, Shion and Rat didn’t go back to West Block to be safe, but instead went downtwon to put an end to the violence. Shion was able to calm the crowd and get Rat inside the Mayers office to stop Elyurias.
With all that said, nature vs. nurture? Are the people in No.6 better people since they had a better upbringing, or is their pompous upbringing at the cost of others in the west district bloody their hands? Most people in No.6 are innocent like Shion. Due to their environment, people in the West district commit crimes to survive– but does that make them bad people? These people are distrustful, like Rat. People like Rikiga (the old journalist turned porno mag) who is a sleazy drunk. Would all these people be different if they had the luxury of No.6? Dogkeeper puts on a hard exterior, but, on the inside, she is really a nice person. Interestingly, Dogkeeper was literally raised by Dogs– similar to Inosuke in Demon Slayer being raised by Boars. Characters like this only really work in fictional pieces. But, they illustrate how people born with nothing can still be good. I don’t think No.6 provides any clear answers but, it poses a good way of thinking about how your environment affects how people behave and what they value.
This isn’t the only Anime to bring up this idea. Older manga like Bleach dabbled with the problems with poverty– consider the Rukon district in the Soul Society. In Bleach, royalty was in more of a negative light than the lower class since they were completely disconnected from reality at times. In both Bleach and No.6, the lower class had more criminals but were at its core good people. Newer animes like Black Clover also look at social classes and how it huts the lower class. No.6, with its dystopian spin on things, makes this discussion a bit more salient.
