Still Sick

I recently finished rereading one of my favourite yuri manga, Still Sick! I can’t remember when I first read it, or if I was reading it while it was still being scanlated, but point is, it’s been a while. As I do in the depths of my worries, I tend to find myself gravitating towards series that bring me comfort/easy to read in some way. Whether it be more light hearted reads, or just a series about characters that I like a lot. Another one of my favourites, Himawari-san falls in this category (I’ve reread that series so many times…) and perhaps on another day I’ll write up a blogpost about it too when I eventually reread it again (I also promise I’m working on my Shinozaki-kun no Mente Jijou post too!).

But enough about that, I wanted to talk about Still Sick, and mostly about how I reread this at an interesting point in my life haha.

The brief summary of the story is that it’s about two office workers, one who draws yuri manga for fun and publishes them at doujin conventions, and another who finds out her secret. But gasp! (spoilers) It turns out they used to be a mangaka!

Shimizu Makoto and Maekawa Akane are both characters that I found extremely relatable in certain aspects. I think part of what makes this series so strong is that not only are the characters funny and likeable, but the struggles and development they go through are also realistic and endearing.

One of the standout parts of the manga for me is how wonderfully funny the faces and expressions can get.

There is something very charming to me about these kinds of doodles too that are done throughout the manga. Of course the regular artwork is great too! I just think these are interspersed at opportune times for great comedic effect.

However as with any great manga, art is just one portion of it. The reason why I love this manga so much is like I said before, the characters!

I always find it interesting when a mangaka (or a writer in general) tells a story about mangakas or something adjacent. Partially because I wonder to myself, how much of themselves are they putting into this story? I’m sure a lot of them have with regards to deadlines, and editors, and the such, but Still Sick in particular has two interesting parallels in it.

Shimizu is someone who draws for fun. She doesn’t do it for her career, she does it as a hobby. Throughout the manga, you can see her passion for yuri too and honestly it’s why she’s such a fun character (in addition to being in a yuri manga). Scenes where she goes “hmm yes this could become yuri” or “see how the characters looked at each other?! yuri!”, as someone who likes yuri, I get it!

And those are my favourite moments with her. She’s so passionate about her love for her ships that I have to respect it. In fact, a moment that I especially love is when she’s talking to Maekawa about what she loves. If there’s no more official content? If her interpretation is different from the source? She doesn’t care!

It’s kind of an off handed comment during her quite passionate confession (2.0?) to Maekawa, but that combined with the type of otaku she is, it’s something I kind of connect to.

I feel like on the internet and in general, you see a lot of focus on “oh this MUST be official” for certain ships. There are various degrees of pushbacks to people “shipping” ranging from “I don’t get it” to “I hate shippers”. Now I enjoy yuri a lot and enjoy some ships that are non-canon or what have you so I’ve seen my fair share of all of the above. My stance has generally always been as long as you’re respectful, who is someone to tell you what to do with your own fantasies?

There’s a lot that I really like about Shimizu’s otakuness (is that even a term) in the story. I appreciate her honesty and upfrontness of how much she enjoys the things she does, and how she talks about being in spaces of like minded people. The scenes talking about twisting things for her own head canon is fun but also relatable. There are series where I very much hyperfocus on the scenes between the characters I like and nothing else haha.

To bring this back to what I’m talking about, and I’m sure part of this is the online spaces I’m in, but I remember quite a while ago now a mangaka I think was saying how they were tired of people demanding the mangaka pair X with Y. And of course, this isn’t limited to just BL/GL!

I personally believe that authors/creators have control of their series and I don’t think it’s a good idea to let fans take control of a story for a lot of reasons. But, that’s only officially! I think if you want to create your own content, share it with others (but not forcing it onto others), by all means! I do it too! That is to say, if you have love for your ship, you don’t NEED the canon. Will it suck if some of my ships get confirmed not real? Sure, but that’s the author’s universe. In MY universe, I get to control it! Others may like it, others may not, and that’s fine. I don’t need their validation, only my own for my own stories. I try to make it a point when I write my fic that first and foremost, the audience I’m writing it for is myself. If other people enjoy it, awesome! If other people don’t, that’s fine too!

Anyways, weird rant on shipping and desire for canon aside, my point is on an otaku level, I connect with Shimizu. Her passion is contagious and I think it really shows throughout the manga. I love passionate characters damn it!

And the way her passion connects with Maekawa makes their dynamic so fantastic. I love their relationship and the way it develops throughout the manga and it only works so well because of the types of characters they are.

Which of course is because Maekawa is another fantastic character! I think when I first read Still Sick, I felt like I had a deeper connection with Shimizu. Both because of the type of job she worked in, her love for her ships, and in some ways even the way she works. However, upon my latest reread, I felt myself sympathizing with Maekawa a lot.

Again, on a more personal level, I really do enjoy writing! I do it as a hobby, and in some ways these ramble posts are a way for me to write for fun in addition to helping organize my thoughts after I finish something. But I don’t think I’m particularly great at it for a plethora of reasons. I’ve submitted some short stories to competitions (to no avail unsurprisingly) and on other occasions done some looking to see what getting published would look like because god knows how many drafts of WIP stories I have. I thought maybe if I could have a goal of “let’s get X published!” I could spur myself into action.

But the reality of the writing industry felt harsh, and Maekawa talks about what it means to be a professional too. And in this manga, I think the parallel between Maekawa and Shimizu in the world of manga are such great depictions of this. Shimizu does it for fun, but Maekawa did it as a job. That means you have to sell, that means appealing to general audiences, that means writing plotlines you may have no attachment to and so on.

There’s a saying that I hear less and less now but used to hear, and that was if you make what you like your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. Unfortunately, I don’t think that holds any weight, especially when it comes to creative pursuits. Some people are able to do it but unfortunately I think that’s much rarer. It’s a huge plot point in the story with Maekawa trying to figure out the kind of story she wants to tell. And I also think it’s one of the reasons why editors are very valuable, in that they help the author try to tell their story. I feel like I made it sound like I think the writing industry is filled with stories that have to pander to general audiences (and I enjoy some of them too) but I know that’s not true either. At least, I don’t mean to sound doomer about creative industries, because I know there are people out there writing the stories they want to tell.

The manga does a really good job in my opinion of showing the differences between Shimizu’s and Maekawa’s perspective on manga. Maekawa seeing that burning passion in Shimizu, the envy she feels, it’s… while I don’t have that for writing (since it’s not my job), I sure get it when it comes to my current industry. I think back to how I first approached my current industry compared to how I feel about it now and it’s like, yeah, I really lost a lot of that spark. I’d be lying too if I said I didn’t envy those who still have that spark.

And I think that contrast is exactly what makes their relationship and watching it develop so strong. Their personalities are different, their views on relationships in general are different, and I particularly liked Maekawa’s dynamic of wanting to be loved. I know I rambled a lot about their individual characters and how I related to them, but I do think their relationship is fantastically developed throughout the manga (and they’re very cute).

One of the best parts is that I think the manga is perfectly paced as well. It’s only three volumes with an additional epilogue doujin (also quite cute) and I think their relationship develops at a not too fast but also not too slow speed throughout it. While both of them have their childish sides, they still handle their relationship from a mature perspective.

This ramble post went on… longer than I thought it would haha. But I guess I wanted to write down my feelings about this series because I felt like I reread it at a time in my life where I felt I could closely relate to a lot of the situations presented. It’s a great manga, and I’m glad to have read it! And reread it. And probably reread it again later.