Manga Review - Octave

A little attention goes a long way.

We want to be noticed. Some more than others. Whether it's desiring to be a national sensation or wishing that the girl at the laundromat would remember a shared handshake, that recognition does something. Keep that in mind during a reading of Octave.

Existing somewhere in the cracks of Tokyo's urban oblivion is Miyashita Yukino, a teenager who has dropped out of high school and works as an office assistant at a talent agency. There's probably nothing more that can cement you as a faceless nothing than having menial grunt work in a big, big city. But it stings a lot more when there was a time you used to be somebody. For Yukino's past reminds her of that faint glow of somewhat-stardom. At sixteen she made a pop album with some other girls (basically one of those many girl-bands that Japan churns out and they matter for a year or two and then they're ground into obscurity). The band wasn't particularly successful and so they were dismantled. Having known what it's like to have everyone's attention and becoming an absolute nobody is enough to mess with anyone, far less an eighteen-year-old living on her own with a rather jaded world view. But loneliness, as Akiyama Haru sharply details in her work, can bring people together.

Despite lacking in visual impressiveness, Octave takes readers on a very real journey of palpable, recognisable emotions. In one of those "of all the laundromats in all of Tokyo" coincidences, Yukino happens to meet a woman who will change her life. It's not a stretch to say that she actually helps Yukino HAVE a life, one outside of the memory of past failures. Yukino meets a present and a future. This woman is Setsuko: older, rational and very cool. She sees in Yukino someone who wants just a bit of attention, and she gives it to her. What starts off as a one-night stand becomes a very hard lesson in life and love. Sometimes things just get fucked up -- there's no soft or pretty way to put that. But what matters is how much you're willing to pay some mind and put aside some pride in order to make things work. Octave might give you the lesson of a lifetime when it comes to relationships.

During the course of this manga, we follow Yukino's highs and very low lows over the next year and some. This is not about her rise out of the ashes or rise to back to stardom. Octave doesn't do that to us or Yukino. It's about making her realise that life is worthwhile even when all you can afford is a ramen dinner. That it's worth more to have one person love you than have a filled-out stadium of adoring fans. It's understanding that you need to take care of yourself. Octave is about self-acceptance just as much as it is about accepting others. Yukino's growth is slow, often infuriating. But when she's able to smile at the idea of tomorrow, that's when you know, with relief and even with pride, yes -- she's done it. She's grown up.

Yukino's development takes centre stage, but Setsuko's evolution from just the object of affection to an extremely strong, complex character deserves a spotlight. Setsuko starts off reliably as the "cool older woman" who seems to have everything together and knows what she wants. And in a way, yes, she is always that. But she's not just that. She can be wounded as much as anyone else.With very little to care about and certainly nobody to think twice about, Setsuko got by making music and just going through the days. That changes when she meets Yukino. She experiences everything she doesn't want to; worry, betrayal, fear and heartbreak. But in that same breath, she also experiences what it's like to turn to your side and see a smile meant only for you.

The rest of cast is made up of Setsuko's kind-hearted but strange twin brother, a quiet, nice chef, and women who are big parts of Yukino's past and present life. These characters do well for support, and give us more perspective into the leads and their personalities. They don't take up much of the story, but without them, there'd be no Octave as this series is entirely about human interaction. We're often lost in Yukino's thoughts, and it's important to observe that most of the story is told from her understanding of the world. It's absolutely biased and flawed. Men appear to be monstrous at times, but that's not commentary on them; it's more so a very telling piece of information about the way Yukino perceives them. Because there are good men as there are bad ones, and good women as there aren't as well. We occasionally get the point of view of other characters, and this supplements how much of this manga is a reflective presentation of Yukino's experiences.

While the melodrama might be enough to make you want to slap Yukino to her senses, it's nice to remind readers that this is an eighteen-year-old with very little knowledge of the world to draw on. She'll make terrible, stupid mistakes. But the ending beauty of this is watching her own up to these and ask for forgiveness and try to move on.

It's easy to wallow in misery. It's hell and a half to try to accept your life. And Yukino comes to know, through a lot of things, that she can only be happy through that acceptance. Now isn't that a grown-up thing to do?

Original review (2012):

There is a scene in Octave where one character, looking at a group of carefree teenagers, turns to the protagonist and says that he thinks she should be a part of that.

It's a rather fleeting moment in the series, perhaps not even a lingering one for most readers, but it is one that freezes time for Yukino as she realises just how quickly her life has slipped her by. She seems to have gone through an entire lifetime and skipped out many of the details of growing up "normally". After all, who can have a normal shift from childhood to adulthood when the last years of youth was spent not in school but on the stage?

Trying to sort out her mess of a life is Yukino, an eighteen-year-old high-school drop-out and a full-time employee at a talent agency (where she undoubtedly brews coffee, runs errands, takes out the trash, files and does other menial tasks). She lives alone in that fabled single-room apartment where all dreams go to die in the big city. And the story begins with Yukino mourning and burying hers. Her fifteen minutes was something more akin to five; her girl pop band never really took off and faded away into the recesses of the internet and old magazines.

To say that this series is about a small-town nobody with big ideas of a life in the city with glitz and glamour is unfair and shallow. Though it might just be thought of as that. It seems like the typical Hollywood tale of broken dreams for the aspiring and ambitious seeking fame. A star can't be born everyday. It's a sour lesson, and Yukino has to learn it. It wouldn't be right to say it's about another failed show biz story and of the girl who is trying to build a life beyond that. There is a concept that appears in the movie Inception, where an idea is said to be the seed of something that grows to define a person. Yukino wants to be recognised, and this simple little idea transforms itself and her. Knowing her past is not just arbitrary details. Her memories of childhood and even a simple scene in her family home reveals much. She is the eldest daughter in a house full of family; younger siblings, old grandparents, working class parents. And there is the girl with the pretty dress, taunting her memories, running far ahead of her. She doesn't want to be buried under people or dowdy clothes. She tries to become a star, she attempts to find love, she searches for people who validate her. Her simple little desire comes to define her, and it's the slow recognition of that as being the poison in her life and trying to cure it is Octave's deeper purpose.

Octave is one of those rare manga series that comes out every so often and doesn't nearly get the kind of attention it deserves. It's quite the coming of age story without certain elements of it-- our main character has already come of age. But she hasn't nearly grown up enough. Now an adult, she has to roughly transition into maturity. This series is one that works with pure emotion; it's not an intellectual manga, but it is one that thoroughly stimulates thought about human feelings and behaviour. It documents the basic emotions of wanting to be accepted and loved and turns it into Yukino's story and life. And both these things are just terribly complex. At some point you may even find yourself angry or sick of certain events or individuals in Octave, and the reason why is that they are just so flawed and terribly lost like we are in the real world.

Octave's cast is a small, personal one. The manga primarily follows Yukino, though some chapters are dedicated to let us into the mind and perspective of Setsuko, whose mysterious appeal as the "beautiful stranger" type is stripped away to reveal a very complex person. And this is where it begins-- with a lonely Yukino being undeniably attracted to and easily seduced by Setsuko after meeting her in a laundromat. A simple moment, exchange of handshakes, but there's an electricity that Yukino can't deny. Setsuko doesn't just help in Yukino losing her virginity but also gaining the chance to begin changing her life.

While many might be consumed with seeing Setsuko as the catalyst for Yukino's self-improvement and willingness to become a better woman, leaving her girlishness behind, a lot of brilliant and subtle character growth would be missed if a reader doesn't see what's happening to Setsuko as well. A relationship can't be anything without two people, and both are affected. Setsuko seems to have everything together; she's five years older, has a job, lives in a decent apartment, knows what she's doing. At least, that's what we see from Yukino's point-of-view, and mistakenly to Yukino, Setsuko has everything figured out. This entire manga is about people trying to get their lives sorted out or even try to begin that process; nobody has anything under control. Everyone has a plan or goal or hope.

The occasional shifts to Setsuko's perspective allow us to see that she isn't all that cool and collected as Yukino thinks. Here is a woman who lives with no real goal. She makes her music, sells it, is content living above the laundromat her twin brother runs and has no interest in relationships. But meeting Yukino changes her entire life-- something as I said would be missed if people aren't paying attention. With Yukino in her life, she has instability and uncertainty, but even that's not a bad thing. Now she seems to be actually living. With Yukino, she has new goals, new dreams. She wants to build a life with this girl, and it's something else to watch Setsuko come to terms with the fact that Yukino has to grow up before she can grow with her.

Other characters include the aforementioned twin brother, Mari, who provides light comic relief to the series. He is a young man with a bright disposition and lots of ideas. A criticism that Octave garners is its portrayal of men as sleazy or sex-hungry or bastards as many of the male characters in the series aren't portrayed in the best light. However, it is to be acknowledged that much of the shadiness is from Yukino. This story is told from her perspective, and it's her ideas we are privy to and it's the way she sees men that we in turn have to see the men. So when she understands there are nice guys like Mari or his friend Ogawa and not just jerks like her boss, she begins to relax her outlook. The rest of the cast consists of women who are important to Yukino, including her close-minded but concerned best friend from her small town Kamo; Mika, who becomes everything Yukino couldn't be and is the subject of envy that Yukino later understands is unwarranted since Mika has a drive she never did; and Shiori, a model who is Yukino's age who is a trial and temptation.

Octave is a rather unique manga in many rights. Saying that it's a must-read for yuri fans seems imperative. This is exactly the kind of mature, slightly grimy but very heavy and meaningful story that the genre needed to grow up in this modern world. But calling this title reading for only yuri fans is limiting; this is one of the finest manga that can be offered to fans of seinen, drama or grown-up manga on the whole. If someone ever says that Octave is a story of a person struggling with their sexual identity, they're absolutely wrong. It's about people struggling with their identities on the whole. That seems the sort of thing that we can all really relate to.

What makes Octave even more special is that by the end, there is no solution. Yukino's financial woes are not all sorted out. She does not become a pop star in some ridiculous twist of fate. She doesn't even know what will become of her and her girlfriend. But there are things to note closely about the kind of things the story closes and does leave us with.

We know that Yukino will survive. She can make it, because she knows there is no "finishing". There is a goal, and then there are the ones after that. Life is about leaving, going, finding, keeping, breaking, creating, and changing. There will be bumps ahead. Nothing is a sure thing, not even Setsuko. But she can smile knowing that as things are, she has the love, support and promise from her girlfriend of sharing their lives in this relationship. Whatever becomes of it, they accept. And Yukino accepts, which is the most important thing. That seed of needing to be recognised has grown fully and consumed her. Yukino sees it, and she does the most important thing-- she recognises herself. So now it's time for that idea to wither and for new ones to take root.

There's no silver lining in the sky. There is just the reassurance that forwards, upwards, heaven-wards is where Yukino will now always try to turn her eyes.