is a

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

Kiriko Nananan is a Japanese manga artist from Tsubame, Niigata. Nananan is famous for her realistic ''josei'' work featuring understated artwork with a sense of detachment. In addition, she has affiliated herself with the "La nouvelle manga" movement. Her firs ...

that was serialized in the

alternative Alternative or alternate may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Alternative (''Kamen Rider''), a character in the Japanese TV series ''Kamen Rider Ryuki'' * ''The Alternative'' (film), a 1978 Australian television film * ''The Alternative ...

manga magazine Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...

''COMIC Are!''; the

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

was released on April 24, 1997. The English version, published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon, was released on March 15, 2006. ''Blue'' is about two high school aged girls, Kayako Kirishima and Masami Endo, who find that their friendship is turning into something more, and they are unsure about their future and feel confused about their current life.

Plot summary

Kayako Kirishima, who lives in Niigata, is almost ready to go off to college but is lonely and unsure of her future. One day in class, she meets social outcast Masami Endo, who is disliked by other students because she had an abortion. The two end up becoming friends, but as the days go on, they each find themselves falling in love with the other and struggle to make sense of their feelings. Eventually, they begin to date, and navigate the ups and downs of high school together. When summer vacation starts, however, Endo goes on a vacation with the man who got her pregnant, a past lover, leaving Kirishima lonely and isolated. When Endo does return, she lies about her experiences and says that she was traveling with old friends. Kirishima knows she is lying and becomes upset with Endo, but ultimately forgives her; the two reconcile, and they decide their futures together. Kirishima decides to go off to Tokyo and pursue a career in art while Endo chooses to stay in her hometown and get a more modest job. The manga ends with Kirishima riding off in a train to Tokyo as Endo looks longingly towards the train.

Notes

This work doesn't focus on

expressionistic Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it r ...

art and melodrama to tell its story; rather, in its place are

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post– World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Do ...

, realistic imagery and storytelling. In accordance to this style the layouts are muted and many sequences of panels only show subtle movement to highlight a particular emotion. The manga was popular enough to spawn a live action film adaptation in 2001. Additionally,

Frédéric Boilet Frédéric Boilet (; born 16 January 1960 in Épinal, France) is a French cartoonist and a manga artist. Biography Frédéric Boilet's debut in comic art was in 1983 with ''La Nuit des Archées''. He created ''Le Rayon vert'' in 1987, followed b ...

had it adapted to French as a part of his ''

La nouvelle manga Nouvelle Manga (french: La nouvelle manga) is an artistic movement which gathers French and Japanese comic creators together. The expression was first used by Kiyoshi Kusumi, editor of the Japanese manga magazine ''Comickers'', in referring to the ...

''. The current English edition by

Fanfare A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets, French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introduction to an instrumental perfo ...

Ponent Mon Ponent, Lleida or Terres de Lleida is one of the seven territories defined by the Regional Plan of Catalonia. It is not clear what name will have, being all of them traditionally accepted names for the region. It is located in the westernmost par ...

is borrowed from the French publication.

References

External links

''Blue'' review
at DVDVisionJapan.com *Shamoon, Deborah "Situating the Shōjo in Shōjo Manga : Teenage Girls, Romance Comics, and Contemporary Japanese Culture" ''Japanese Visual Culture'' Ed. Mark MacWilliams. ME Sharpe, 200

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blue (Manga) 1996 manga Manga adapted into films