OUR CONNECTING LINES OF DESTINY

ANJE CHIMURA - Writer, 3rd Year, Philosophy & Media Studies

Whatever path you take, you must keep going forward.

SPOILERS FOR LIFE: SENJOU NO BOKURA!

Life: Senjou no Bokura is a miracle. It was both written and drawn by a singular inexperienced mangaka, but it somehow manages to craft a poignant tale about identity, loss, and love. Reading through the manga myself, I found that there were several points where I had to stop and simply absorb the emotions being delivered to me from off the pages. If all you wanted to hear was a brief recommendation, here it is: go read Life: Senjou no Bokura; it’s good.

This emotional rollercoaster of a BL manga starts off by establishing two things: structural framing and tone. Its framing is done through each scene having the age of the main characters presented to the audience (ie. chapter one starts off with “17 - Seventeen”, with subsequent scenes continuing this progression of time). This works well because the broader narrative structure is able to use it to create heightened emotional strain in the later sections of the manga. By establishing this structure early, Life: Senjou no Bokura is able to show us the lives of our two main characters from a storybook-type perspective. This leads into tone, which the manga nails as well. For a majority of the time, Life: Senjou no Bokura’s tone is lighthearted, as is typical for the format its contemporaries in the genre use. However, this carefree feeling isn’t the exclusive tone of the manga either, despite its relatively short length. There are a few parts, especially in the middle of the manga, where the tone shifts gradually to communicate a sense of hopelessness and despair. The tonal shift feels quite natural given the events of the story leading up to that point, and as such, it creates a powerful contrast to the feeling readers would have been used to from the earlier chapters. By setting up both the framing and tone early on, Life: Senjou no Bokura is able to capitalize on them extremely effectively when it counts, and when it wants to make you cry.

The two main characters are really cute, both individually and as a couple. Nishi is a typical (but not derogatorily) deredere guy who always remains idealistic and optimistic. He serves as the boke to the other main character, Itou, who is very much a tsukkomi. Itou is more in line with the tsundere archetype, but he tends to make his emotions very apparent to the reader.

He is often the character with more emotional complications, such as his conflicting struggle with his identity and love for Nishi. In a way, apart from the central love story, Itou’s journey of self-discovery is the heart of the entire manga. He provides a groundedness in reality that the dreamy Nishi contrasts with well, and they really fit well together as a couple. Their dynamic feels natural, lighthearted, and sweet, especially given how they meet and fall in love over their games of make-believe. Before they get together, Nishi and Itou only ever meet during their fantasy games, where they each tread carefully along the white painted lines of the street. Even though they connect over the fact they do these silly imaginings, Itou especially wants to become closer with Nishi. This is pretty clever for the story to be set up this way, because as with the previous aspects I talked about, this dynamic influences the rest of the story, too. Particularly, Itou having a desire that is unable to be communicated goes on to seriously affect the central relationship, from their first kiss, to their more intimate moments, and to their breakup. If you couldn’t tell from what I’ve said already, everything in this manga fits together super well, and enhances its other aspects.

Needless to say, Life: Senjou no Bokura is masterfully crafted to ensure maximum emotional resonance. The breakup is heart-wrenching, only topped by the much more heart-wrenching reunion(s) present in the final chapters. For how beautiful Life: Senjou no Bokura is, it is criminally overlooked. Please go read it when you have the chance!