I’m Here, Beside You Volume 1 Review

Even though it’s been a while since he left high school, salaryman Ibuki Doi just can’t forget the student council president, Mikami Baba, his senpai and unrequited crush. But when he reads online that Mikami is getting married in the USA – and to another man! – all his unfulfilled dreams overwhelm him and he tries to drown his regrets in drink. Next morning, he wakes up to find his mother calling him to get ready for school. He’s somehow reverted to his high-school self – but with all his memories of the intervening years intact.

When did Ibuki first fall for Mikami? He remembers when he was hospitalized in the third year of middle school with gastritis. The class rep Mitsuki brought his friend Mikami to check on Ibuki – and Mikami lent him a handheld gaming device to alleviate the boredom while recuperating. Later, when Ibuki was well enough to return the device, Mikami gave him helpful advice about making friends – although as he couldn’t remember his name, he called him ‘Soba-kun’.

Ibuki can’t help but do all he can to get closer to Mikami, leaving little gifts of his favourite tea and snacks in the student council office. Yet when Mikami calls his bluff, he confesses his feelings – only to be rejected. Not just rejected, Mikami even asks him to stop leaving the little gifts because “It creeps me out.”

We then see matters from Mikami’s point of view as he talks to his older sister Mikoto. The two are close. Ibuki’s implication– that he’d heard a rumour that he might be open to ‘dating guys’ – has touched a raw nerve. Mikoto gently reminds him that he’s not homophobic and he’s been asked out by boys (as well as girls) before. But it’s the whole issue of his peers spreading unfounded rumours about him that really bothers Mikami.

Devastated, Ibuki tries to get back in Mikami’s good books, only for Mikami to draw the wrong conclusion, asking, “You don’t happen to know my sister, do you?” It turns out that Mikoto tutors school students in her spare time so, encouraged by Mitsuki, Ibuki gets deeper into inventing reasons for knowing so much about Mikami – and more unhappy about having to weave such a complicated web of deceit. How can he tell his crush that he’s come back from the future?

I’m Here, Beside You is the first of TEA natsuno’s Boys’ Love manga to receive an English edition and there’s much to recommend it. The art is attractive, displaying an apt and often affecting range of expressions in the main character who, as he becomes increasingly mired in having to invent reasons to explain his actions to his crush, becomes more and more unhappy with the way things are going. The time-travel story in which a main character finds themselves back in their younger self’s body with the chance to avoid some terrible past tragedy is a popular one in manga: Erased by Kei Sanbe, Orange by Ichigo Takano and Tokyo Revengers by Ken Wakui are just three recent variations on the theme.

However, this is where I have a problem with I’m Here, Beside You. For the first three chapters everything is about Ibuki and his anguish over his unrequited love for Mikami. Then in the fourth chapter, we learn that there’s a terrible tragedy in Mikami’s life that occurred while both boys were in high school: Mikoto was murdered. Not only that, Ibuki remembers the name of the murderer (a neighbour) who was presumably caught and convicted before Mikami and his grieving family emigrated to the USA. Suddenly, Ibuki is confessing to Mikami that he’s come from the future to stop the murder taking place – even though we have not been given a single hint of this in the first three chapters! It’s as if his whole motivation does a 180. I would have been fine if this had been signposted from Chapter 1 or even in Chapter 2 but it felt as if I’d started reading one story and then found myself in a completely different one. (Also, Mikami’s reaction to hearing such a horrifying piece of information about his beloved sister – surely that would need to be rather more dramatic than the conversation that takes place between the two young men.)

Also, weirdly for a story ostensibly told from the viewpoint of the time-traveller, Ibuki, Chapter 3 swaps to Mikami’s viewpoint which might be helpful for readers so they can meet his sister Mikoto but kind-of negates the whole time-shift set-up. This kind of story requires a great deal of skill on the part of the writer because the slightest misstep can throw the reader out of the suspension of disbelief necessary to make matters work. There’s no mangaka’s afterword or editorial comments either which might have helped to shed light on why these plot decisions were made and adhered to. Maybe in Volume 2… ?

The translation for Yen Press is in the hands of experienced Leighann Harvey and reads well (although there are no translation notes). The lettering is by Elena Pizarro Lanzas and works well. There are no colour illustrations or extras but the trade paperback shows off TEA natsuno’s art to good effect as does the cover. Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that the title is rated ‘Mature’ but there are absolutely no scenes of a sexual nature, not even a kiss. Maybe (again) in Volume 2…?

There are some interesting ideas in this first volume but the murder of the MC’s much-loved sister suddenly becoming the excuse for Ibuki to get close to Mikami throws the narrative off-balance. If the author had just managed to mention the sister’s death in the first chapter as being the reason Mikami and his family left Japan, everything would feel less engineered and awkward. Perhaps things will be satisfactorily resolved in Volume 2 which is due out in May…

Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.