Smells Like Green Spirit Review

WARNING: This volume contains instances of homophobia, transphobia, assault of a minor and mentions of suicide.

Junior high schooler Futoshi Mishima lives in the back of beyond (the nearest supermarket is twenty minutes’ drive away) with his widowed mother. Relentlessly bullied by his classmates for being gay, picking on his long ‘girly’ hair and pretty features, his only happiness is when he secretly practises changing his looks with the pink lipstick he’s secretly taken from his mother’s handbag. Then he loses the lipstick – and is astonished to come upon one of his tormentors, soccer team ace Kirino, trying it out in secret on the school roof. After his initial fury at being discovered, Kirino admits that he’s ‘always been this way’ and the two realize they have a great deal in common.

However, Yumeno, another member of the soccer team, can’t stop persecuting Mishima, calling him ‘Homoshima’ – and if that wasn’t enough, social studies teacher Mr. Yanagida (young, handsome and very popular with the girls) keeps offering him lifts home in his car. When these are rejected, he begins to punish Mishima for minor offences in class, culminating in ‘a hundred spankings.’ And then when Mishima’s bike mysteriously develops a puncture, he has no excuse to reject Mr. Yanagida’s offer of a lift home – and it’s only the quick reaction of Kirino (helped, surprisingly, by Yumeno) that leads to an ugly confrontation at an old cement works with the teacher and the rescue of Mishima from his clutches.

And from now on, relations between Yumeno and Mishima change and the bullying stops. Maybe Yumeno has feelings for Mishima but they came out all wrong? It’s hardly surprising that the young men exhibit homophobic sentiments as the adults in the community are constantly gossiping disapprovingly about the rumours around Mishima – and both Yumeno and Kirino have difficult family situations to deal with, especially Kirino. No wonder, then, that Mishima and Kirino fantasize about escaping to Thailand, in summer break… or, as that’s far away and they don’t have passports, maybe Ni-Chome, famed for its gay bars, in Tokyo. But will there ever be a way for them to live out and proud, especially as the meddling village gossips have decided to confront their parents?

Up till now, the only manga by Saburo Nagai available in a licensed English edition has been the digital version of Boys, Be Ambitious! from SuBLime so it’s about time their most well-known BL title from 2012-13 gained a US publisher. Kudos then to Vertical (Kodansha) for bringing out this 2-in-1 omnibus edition of what was then, notoriously, a ‘difficult’ work. How has it stood the test of time? Compared with the earlier light-hearted SuBLime title, Smells Like Green Spirit is a raw and uncompromising picture of how difficult it can be to be different from your peers. And yet it also has many moments of dry and sometimes cruel humour: the horrible gossiping neighbours are portrayed as caricatures, ugly old men and women. The mangaka’s art is dazzlingly versatile: the scenes where Mr. Yanagida is featured are genuinely nightmarish as they depict his disintegrating state of mind – whereas the three boys are as beautiful as Botticelli angels.

There are no easy answers in this story for Mishima, Kirino or Yumeno. They are surrounded by unsympathetic adults: the only parent who unquestioningly accepts her son and stands up for him is Mishima’s mother (who is young and pretty) – although Yumeno’s mother reveals that she’s much more understanding than he could have imagined. Not everyone’s story turns out the way they’d hoped so there are some difficult and sad scenes toward the end of the book – although other outcomes are positive. Attitudes have undoubtedly changed over the last fourteen years and, one hopes, have become more accepting in both east and west. It’s interesting too that Vertical (Kodansha) state that this manga will appeal to ‘older teens and adult fans of seinen and LGBTQ+ series like Welcome Back Alice, The Flowers of Evil, and Boys Run the Riot.’

In highlighting Mishima’s interest in revealing the feminine side of his nature, the mangaka is opting to portray being gay in a very specific context. When he and Kirino are discussing escaping to ‘Utopia’ (Thailand) in one of their rooftop chats, it’s Kirino who says longingly, “And come back girls” because at that time, Thailand was famous for being a society in which gender-reassignment and homosexuality were accepted. But Mishima then admits to Kirino that, “I’m positive now that I’m 100% gay. And I do like to dress up, but I’m not sure that I’d actually want to… be a girl.” Whereas football ace Kirino is the one who adopts a feminine way of speaking when they’re alone together and can be their true selves.

The warnings at the front of this manga (and above) are there for a purpose as many scenes in this book are grim and disturbing. And it’s Mr. Yanagida, the paedophilic teacher, who is at the centre of the mangaka’s ongoing series Shintan Kairou (the seventh volume recently came out in Japan) as the complexities of his character have inspired Nagai to delve much deeper into what might have led to him becoming the disturbed and abusive person portrayed in Smells Like Green Spirit. I wonder whether we’ll ever see it in English, though; Hana Books brought out the first volume in French as Les Couloirs de l’Abime in 2021 but haven’t pursued it any further. But in the meantime, Smells Like Green Spirit has been made into an eight-part J-drama series as recently as 2024.

This omnibus edition from Vertical (Kodansha) is a handsome one with good paper and ten colour pages at the front, showcasing the mangaka’s art as well as the butch avatar they’ve adopted (Jennifer LeBlanc of SuBLime tells us that in spite of this hyper-masculine avatar, Nagai is a woman). The translation is by Jo Lumley with lettering by Carolina Hernandez Mendoza and their work combines to deliver an excellent reading experience. There’s a one-page comic afterword from the mangaka at the end as well as their avatar thanking the audience for reading.

Thought-provoking, disturbing, yet also surprisingly uplifting and hopeful by the end, Smells Like Green Spirit feels like an important and long-overdue addition to the LGBTQ+ manga canon available in English.

Read a free chapter preview at the publisher’s website here. 

Our review copy from Vertical (Kodansha) was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).

• Smells Like Green Spirit © Saburo Nagai/FUSION PRODUCT