23.45 Review
Two months after I moved to Tokyo, a ghost started ‘haunting’ my apartment.
Iku Kurihara has just started university in Tokyo – but rather than plunging into the social side of college life, he prefers to devote all his free time to his otaku enthusiasms. He’s also begun to see ghosts – most notably a young man who’s haunting a pedestrian bridge near his apartment. To Iku’s surprise, the ghost is keen to communicate with him and when he brings back a fan comic Iku had dropped, Iku lets him in to his apartment and they start talking. The ghost tells Iku his name is Mimori Seo and he’s friendly, keen to talk – and able to pick up a comic and ring the doorbell. His visits start to become a habit – but every night at 23.45, he’s compelled to return to the bridge and reenact his fall. As the two get to know each other better, Iku realizes he can’t bear to watch Mimori make his way every evening at 23.45 to the bridge. Even though he knows Mimori is a ghost, one night he throws his arms around him to physically stop him going back to the bridge. And, to his shock and surprise, he realizes that he can actually touch Mimori and tells him, “I won’t ever let you die again.”
Iku has been thinking about death and what it means to die, partly because of his relationship with his mother (a single parent). He’s carrying a lot of unresolved guilt from things that happened when he was a teenager and talking with Mimori begins to help him sort out his feelings. But he’s also been trying to research what happened to Mimori although with little success – until a chance conversation with one of his co-workers at his part-time job at the combini. Spotting Mimori in a photo on the wallpaper on her cellphone takes him by surprise and he blurts out, “I figured I should visit his grave” eliciting a furious response and a slap across the face from her. How did she know Mimori? What has he said that’s made her so angry?
In many ways, 23.45 is a wish-fulfilment story which sets up a relationship which would be ideal if only one partner wasn’t… in this case, a ghost. Iku and Mimori seem made for each other, so it’s a cruel stroke of fate that brings them together when it’s too late for them to have a relationship. Or is it? Does Ohana (whose English debut this is) cheat in making Mimori such a physical entity when most other ghosts (like Asahi Mogami in Phantom of the Idol) are insubstantial and can pass through walls, but not hold hands, pick up a dropped comic or ring doorbells?
But 23.45 is also a story of redemption and the possibility of change brought about by love. The other prominent strand is the portrayal of Iku’s mother which Ohana feeds into the main narrative, a little at a time. It starts with a recurrent disturbing memory of Iku’s in which a woman (we only learn later she’s his mother) is telling him, “I didn’t mean to. I just, you know, made a little mistake” which feels as if it’s going to build into something traumatic… The mother/son thread is interwoven with the Iku and Mimori thread, both showing how Iku (something of a solitary otaku) begins to change as he works through his conflicted feelings about his mother and develops feelings of a very different kind for Mimori.
Ohana’s art is attractive and expressive (especially considering that this work was first published in 2015 and styles change so fast in manga) and she utilises a wide range of different panelling and graphic effects to bring out the supernatural elements of the story. We see everything through Iku’s eyes which helps to bind the story elements together, as well as lending him a thoughtful and sometimes poetic voice as he reflects on what he – and Mimori – are experiencing.
The translation for Vertical is by Mei Amaki and reads well; no letterer is credited but the lettering also works well to convey the characters’ thoughts and conversation. There’s a colour page at the beginning which, like the cover art, shows off the mangaka’s pleasing use of subtle shades. The story is rated 16+. There are no translation notes but there’s a charming bonus story and two 4-koma called They Aren’t Dating. The mangaka also supplies an illustrated two-page Afterword which is well worth reading as well as presenting Iku’s favourite 2D character ‘Reanimated Magical Girl Nina’. The sequel 23.45; Re is due out in July.
23.45 turns out to be a thoughtful and touching Boys’ Love story, attractively illustrated and an excellent introduction to Ohana’s works for English readers.
Read at free preview at the publisher’s website here.
Our review copy from Vertical was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).
