Life 1 I know I'm a bit behind with "Life" 'cause as of May 2003 there are already 3 volumes available and I only have vol 1 so far and some Betsufure chaps, but here will be a short introduction. I will really summarize this series beginning with volume 2 or 3 (depends on when I'll get those tankoubons). This is the story about Ayumu, who's pretty bad at school. Her best friend is the very smart Shi-chan, who always has the best marks. Shi-chan wants to attend a special highschool and prepares fore the entrance exams when Ayumu decides that she also want to go to this highschool to always be close to her best friend Shi-chan. So she really starts to study her ass of in order to pass the exam. One night she learns to much and can hardly concentrate. She plays around with her compasses and sticks it into her hand and realizes that she can concentrate better now. She soon gets better at school, even better than Shi-chan. 'cause Ayumu know that Shi-chan doesn't want Ayumu to be better at school , Ayumu lies to her and tells her a worse result than she really got (she said she got 85 points, in reality she got 95, more than Shi-chan). The day of the entrance exam comes and Ayumu makes a lucky charm for Shi-chan and gives it to her before the exam. After the test, Shi-chan looks pretty depressed 'cause she confused something but Ayumu makes her smile again. Then they go to the board to look whether they have passed or not, just to see that Ayumu has managed it … but Shi-chan has failed. Ayumu tries to comfort her but Shi-chan tells her to leave. At home Ayumu takes up her compasses again and scratches her hand with it. On the next day she sees Shi-chan at school again, and she smiles at her. Ayumu thinks Shi-chan wants to make things up with her but she just throws her lucky charm on the ground. At night Ayumu is really down. She takes a picture of her and a smiling Shi-chan and scratches her face on the picture with a knife. Ayumu cries, then she takes the knife and cuts her wrist. She looks down and realizes what she has done. The second part of "Life" starts when Ayumu enters her new Highschool. She gets to know Manami, a very pretty girl who wants to make friends with Ayumu. Ayumu is really happy to find another friend in her new school. However, Manami is not the perfect friend. She's a little blown up, she always talks about her boyfriend Katsumi and she wants Ayumu to only be there for her (e.g. she doesn't want Ayumu to talk to girls she isn't friends with). Ayumu even has problems to build up relationships with other people herself, 'cause she's afraid that other people might find out that she cuts herself. One day at school she's going around and wants to get to the roof. She's climbing up when she suddenly sees a super pretty girl who is smiling at her. Later she is talking with Manami when her boyfriend comes in and Ayumu finds herself staring at him. Manami leaves with her boyfriend. Later Ayumi meets up with Manami. Manami acts as if she's really happy but suddenly she has a breakdown because of something that happened with her boyfriend. Manami is crying. She says "bye bye" to Ayumu and runs to the rails while a train is coming. Shocked, Ayumu starts running and pushes her away from the rails. Manami cries and talks something about dreaming of becoming Katsumi's wife and loving him. Then she gets this really shocking expression on her face and says something about making a promise, while both are lying on the ground. (Okay, here I have to say that I do not know what Minami is talking about. It may be that she's talking about the promise she already made with Ayumu a while ago at class , but I think she wants to make another promise. I cannot understand that phrase 'cause the Kanji make no sense for me. Must be some proverb, I guess…) What is Sanae thinking about Life vol 1? I cannot say to much about the story yet 'cause this is only volume one (but I how it continues after that from Betsufure chapters, but anyhow..), but I think this is an interesting Manga. The artstyle is really nice and I think Ayumu is real likeable. Sometimes it's hard to watch the pictures, (Suenobu draws the wrist cutting scenes really authentic), but I like the story so far and I think this will get very interesting. It's good that somebody picked that topic up to make a manga of it. Back to Index