Indeed, with him playing a Yuji who’s every bit a young boy delighted to have his mother back yet wise enough to know what’s coming, Takei is arguably what makes Be With You so special as a jun’ai piece in relation to all other works of the same genre with the presence of Yuji in the storyline, Be With You goes from just being a jun’ai piece to a touching portrayal of familial love. The result is a world that feels like it is intimately tied in with the miracle, and one cannot help but be drawn in by the magic woven by Nobuhiro, a magic that defies any attempt at definition.Īnd while Nakamura Shido and Takeuchi Yuuko were splendid in their roles of Takumi and Mio respectively, it has to be said that they were simply outshone by Takei Akashi, the child actor playing the role of their six-year-old son Yuji. Nobuhiro also creates a certain magical feeling to the world in which the film takes place, with the usage of the rain season as the backdrop to the six-week miracle that serves as the basis of the story. For a film debut, Nobuhiro Doi shows his mettle as a director with aplomb the cinematography is astoundingly beautiful, with most of the scenes set around a beautiful forest close to the Aio family home. And it also makes for an even more satisfying ending, for it is not an individual, but a family that learns to cope with the loss, and look forward to the future with the knowledge that love never dies. The source material is thus richer than the average jun’ai story, for the anguish of loss is all the more poignant, and the feeling of emptiness is all the greater, for the fact that it is not an individual, but a family, suffering from the absence of a loved one.
It does talk about love, but unlike other jun’ai works, its discourse on love is not limited to the love between a man and a woman it is a look into the love between a husband and a wife, between a mother and her child, and between everyone in a family. In the end, Be With You is nothing short of being plainly, utterly without any prominent advantages and faults – that is, average.Though an example of Japanese jun’ai, Be With You takes a somewhat different tack from its better-known contemporaries. On the other hand, the plot’s not all that interesting yet not particularly faulty otherwise the art’s not very attractive but could be worse and the cast is good enough but far from great. Unlike some manga that I give similarly low scores to, Be With You has nothing particularly disgusting, offensive, or boring. Sure, they have plenty of qualities that are desirable in people, but none that interesting characters need.
Unfortunately, since the story of Be With You is already quite weak, there’s really no place for the characters to shine. They’re a more-or-less generic family that exists to carry out the story efficiently there are no surprises or twists in character development. The characters are no saving grace either. The whole manga suffers because of this unfortunate happening. Unfortunately, the artist instead clutters each page with too many details and panels, a total discredit to the art. It’s the kind of art that would go best with extremely simple backgrounds and page layouts to emphasize the simplicity of the story it accompanies. The basic style is cute, but somewhat sketchy. The art certainly doesn’t help matters much. Things happen, but there’s no reason to care. It has no elements of touching romance, gripping mystery, or calm slice-of-life it’s just… there. The creators of this manga didn’t particularly try – or just failed – to make the readers feel any particular emotions when reading the story. heartwarming, but falls flat when it fails to give any real message or impact. To add an extra twist, the woman doesn’t know she’s a ghost!īut no matter how interesting it may sound from the back cover, the storyline just didn’t progress very well. It’s a shame, since it really has a great concept: a young man (along with his son) meets the ghost of his wife and gets to spend a bit more time with her before she must leave him for good. Unfortunately, the manga (originally a novel, which I have not read) failed to deliver.
Be With You has one of the neatest premises I’ve ever heard of.
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