If I was told that there was to be only one manga to survive some cataclysmic catastrophe, it would be this one, the beautifully drawn and written Mizu wa Umi ni Mukatte Nagareru. Somehow, I felt as if this 24 chapter manga was able to bring a story on the level of a good 50 chapter manga; somehow, in spite of its brevity and wispiness, it was delightfully compact and deep. It is a family drama, a genre I normally detest due to the melodrama and oft-used clichés that are employed, but this story did not unfold like that. The structure of it was unconventional(at least to me). Rather than directly situating itself before or during the drama (a double affair between the Sakaki and Kumazawa households), it instead takes place much after, where the upfront consequences have died down and things are seemingly normal. The drama is somewhat reignited (emphasis on somewhat) when Kumazawa Naotatsu, the young son of the Kumazawa household, moves to a boarding house where his uncle lives and coincidentally meets Sakaki Chisa, the daughter of the Sakaki household. From there on, starts a subtle and melancholic exploration of their strange relationship with an ending that is crisp and somewhat ambiguous.

The characters are wonderfully subtle: deceptively simple, yet the story offers hints about their multifaceted personalities. Sakaki Chisa is a young twenty-six year old woman who breathes normalcy, yet the story exposes a childish side to her, where she stubbornly refuses to do love because of the double affair in her past. Naotatsu himself is a young teen who acts and talks a bit precociously, but his own thoughts reveal a fear of abandonment and selfishness that is inherent in most youths. The professor (another boarder of the house) is a more minor example, but nonetheless a great one still. He is an eccentric and often childish older man, but reveals in dialogues with Naotatsu and Chisa an old wisdom which understands the implications and consequences of the double affair.

The art is wispy and minimalist, yet paradoxically expressive, something that reminds me of Yotsuba!, another manga I enjoy greatly. Although it is sometimes distracting to see the characters’ noses being disconnected from their mouths when drawn in profile, that doesn’t detract from the overall quality.

One thing I would like to make a point on are the references. Most references in stories are generally used to show-off the author’s cultural knowledge or to make some symbolic gesture. In this story, they are used not merely for showing off the author’s cultural knowledge, but to make the characters feel like real people. People constantly are consuming media and thus are bound to talk about them in real life. This is just another great addition to the charm of its story.

TL:DR this is a great slice of life manga whose greatest strength is in its subtlety and compelling depiction of a family drama