Cafe Snowbelle: Manga Match 41 Dreamin' Sun

I've been sitting on the idea of writing a book, well maybe writing a book is a bit too ambitious at this point, but that's the end goal anyways. When I was in this frenzy last week or so I came up with this really interesting idea, but I'm not sure that I could successfully write a coming of age kind of story, if I myself haven't gone through or completed a journey of self-discovery sort of deal. It'd be like writing a romance story without ever having been in love, which can be done, just not well. Trust me, I've really tried. No amount of shoujo manga could ever really replace that personal experience.

Recently V has brought it to my attention something that I've been avoiding for a while. I've been watching anime for 5+ years now, sure with some of it being on and off, but now it's becoming more of an off thing than an on one. Even blogging is somehow coming more of a chore and a weekly obligation rather than something I'm excited to sit down and discuss with myself in a blog. I'm not exactly sure how much longer this will go on, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

{Spoilers}

Now onto the happy stuff!

Actually, the creator of this manga also wrote Orange which is one of my all-time favorites. The time travel aspect and the romance and just the raw feelings of everything being out of your control and all of those separate universes ugh. Orange is something I'll never truly forget about.There was nothing left to be desired in that manga. And the creator really did it again! They created another masterpiece. Of course it wasn't as intriguing as Orange because it didn't have that mysterious fantasy thing going for it what with the time traveling letters and all, but it was really just an overall heart-warming manga. I binged the heck out of it and enjoyed each of the characters. I have to say that while the story itself wasn't the most original thing I've ever read, the dynamic in between the characters and the secret relations between the characters due to affairs and all had me shocked at some parts and absolutely melting at others.

This was the story about Shimana, a girl who couldn't find happiness in her household. She ran away from her house, and found a home with a boarding house situation with three other guys. It was definitely a chronicle of her experience with love, from falling in love with Asahi as the guy who was like the sun to her to chasing after Taiyou/the landlord and her love for him developing beyond admiration and wanting a safe harbor to wanting the very best for him to dealing with Zen and his unrequited love for her. Thank goodness everyone ended up with a happy ending.

I think something that set this manga apart from the rest, was how holistic the whole story was. I felt as though it did a good job displaying different types of love and how Shimana really matured in how she experienced and dealt with her love. Her love for Asahi was one more of admiration and of generally liking his golden boy aura. There weren't any super deep feelings there, just more of a little girl's crush. With Zen's unrequited love for her, which isn't something that's as focused on in a lot of shoujo, with the emphasis being on the main pair rather than the side characters, just in general though, it was kind of the most beautiful and most attractive thing to me about this manga. Zen's love for Shimana was built on this whimsical crush on this girl that's doing her best and from a place of not wanting things to work out for her so that she would give him a chance to instead just wanting what was best for her. It was a showcase of how pure his love was and how mature he became through supporting Shimana in her love for the landlord. And every time he cried my heart ached for this pure boy that just wanted the best for his unrequited love. On the receiving side of Zen's affections, Shimana was having to deal with someone's feelings who she couldn't reciprocate and a love for someone who didn't seem interested. This dissonance between Zen who could give her everything and the landlord who seemed anything but interested created an interesting internal dialogue of "why do I love this guy who doesn't seem like he will ever reciprocate my love for him instead of this great guy in front of me" which highlights the irrational nature of love as something that definitely isn't logical or even explicable at times. And the Landlord even directly hits on this point when he's realized his feelings for Shimana, but insists that Zen would be a better fit for her. To Shimana this makes her all the more angry because even she can't really explain why exactly she fell for the landlord or why she couldn't fall in love with Zen instead.

In the end though it all worked out for everyone. They were able to live happily ever after which I am so relieved about, even though they're fictional characters. I know it's irrational to be stressed over things that are make-believe, but I can't help it. I'm glad that Zen was able to turn his feelings for Shimana into an important memory instead of suppressing it or doing something unhealthy and move on to find a new love. Phew

Overall, the expression of love and the way that love grew and developed in this manga was unlike anything else I've experienced. It was definitely unique because of its characters. I would honestly reread it if I had time just to look at Zen's little panda cutely named Zenzen and all of Zen's antics. Can you tell that Zen's my favorite? And it was really nice how the landlord supported all of their dreams. A lot of the time I think we're faced with people that don't support our dreams for one reason or another, out of worry or love or out of some other motivation, but it was encouraging to see Taiyou being there to support other people's dreams even though in his life no one supported his dream. All the boys are very pure. I'll be thinking about this manga for a long time afterwards.