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scans_dailyJuly is Disability Pride Month, at least in New York. To celebrate, I’d like to recommend five manga series featuring disabled characters in their main cast. First three are real world drama series focusing on disability, while two later are fantasy series where the main character’s disability is there for drama and not portrayed realistically. Let’s begin!
Shape of Your Voice, known also under the English title a movie based on it was released under - Silent Voice, is a seven volume manga by Yoshitoki Oima. As a kid Shoya Ishida used to bully his deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya. Years later, he wants to make amends and reunites with Shoko, who feels isolated due to her disability and shyness. Shoya is determined to help Shoko make friends, and a social group is formed around a desire to make a film for a competition.
Perfect World by Rie Aruga is a twelve volume romantic manga. Tsugumi Kawana is a woman in her 20s working for an interior design company. During a high school reunion she again meets her high school crush, the handsome Itsuki Ayukawa, now an architect and a wheelchair user. The two begin a relationship, with a major obstacle being other people’s attitude to Itsuki’s disability rather than disability itself.
I Hear the Sunspot is an ongoing (currently on its sixth volume) boys’ love manga by Yuki Fumino. Kouhei is a collage student who is hard of hearing, which not only make it difficult for him to make friends but also causes him scholar problems, as he cannot properly hear the teachers during lectures. He hires a fellow student, Taiichi, to make notes for him. Charmed by his lively and bright personality, Kouhei falls for Taiichi, and Taiichi returns his feelings. Reading order: I Hear the Sunspot (1 volume) → Theory of Happiness (1 volume) → Limit (3 volumes) → Four Seasons (ongoing)
Now for more fantastic series, Hero is a multi-author manga franchise that is a magical girls series with a twist – for using the magic the girls pay with their physical abilities, to the point of a girl who has performed her master move becomes a shut in within her own body, unable to perceive any sensual stimuli or move while at the same point being virtually immortal. It’s still INFINITELY better than any of my earlier anti-recomendations! During the course of the series, almost all characters become disabled in some way – or die. Not really cheerful representation, but honestly it’s novel to read about disabled magical girls. Reading order: Washio Sumi is a Hero (1 volume)/Washio Sumi’s Chapter (2 volumes) (two different takes on titular character’s backstory)→ Yuki Yuna is a Hero (5 volumes) → Nogi Wakaba is a Hero (4 volumes).
Nightmare of Nunally is a five volume spin-off of Code Geass, a series that rivaled Death Note in popularity in 2007. Written and drawn by Tomomasa Takuma, it focuses on Nunally Lamperouge, a preteen blind wheelchair user who is the original anime’s main character’s younger sister. The story diverges early on, with Lelouch being apparently killed instead of contracting CC. Searching for her brother, Nunally encounters a magical creature of her own, which upon contracting gives her a magical mecha and ability to see through the machine’s sensors. It’s a silly story, but nonetheless very entertaining.
I also know a few more BL stories that feature disabled characters, though they are either one-shots or the disability appears late into the story and is not very well handled, so I'm reluctant to recommend them.
Shape of Your Voice, known also under the English title a movie based on it was released under - Silent Voice, is a seven volume manga by Yoshitoki Oima. As a kid Shoya Ishida used to bully his deaf classmate Shoko Nishimiya. Years later, he wants to make amends and reunites with Shoko, who feels isolated due to her disability and shyness. Shoya is determined to help Shoko make friends, and a social group is formed around a desire to make a film for a competition.
Perfect World by Rie Aruga is a twelve volume romantic manga. Tsugumi Kawana is a woman in her 20s working for an interior design company. During a high school reunion she again meets her high school crush, the handsome Itsuki Ayukawa, now an architect and a wheelchair user. The two begin a relationship, with a major obstacle being other people’s attitude to Itsuki’s disability rather than disability itself.
I Hear the Sunspot is an ongoing (currently on its sixth volume) boys’ love manga by Yuki Fumino. Kouhei is a collage student who is hard of hearing, which not only make it difficult for him to make friends but also causes him scholar problems, as he cannot properly hear the teachers during lectures. He hires a fellow student, Taiichi, to make notes for him. Charmed by his lively and bright personality, Kouhei falls for Taiichi, and Taiichi returns his feelings. Reading order: I Hear the Sunspot (1 volume) → Theory of Happiness (1 volume) → Limit (3 volumes) → Four Seasons (ongoing)
Now for more fantastic series, Hero is a multi-author manga franchise that is a magical girls series with a twist – for using the magic the girls pay with their physical abilities, to the point of a girl who has performed her master move becomes a shut in within her own body, unable to perceive any sensual stimuli or move while at the same point being virtually immortal. It’s still INFINITELY better than any of my earlier anti-recomendations! During the course of the series, almost all characters become disabled in some way – or die. Not really cheerful representation, but honestly it’s novel to read about disabled magical girls. Reading order: Washio Sumi is a Hero (1 volume)/Washio Sumi’s Chapter (2 volumes) (two different takes on titular character’s backstory)→ Yuki Yuna is a Hero (5 volumes) → Nogi Wakaba is a Hero (4 volumes).
Nightmare of Nunally is a five volume spin-off of Code Geass, a series that rivaled Death Note in popularity in 2007. Written and drawn by Tomomasa Takuma, it focuses on Nunally Lamperouge, a preteen blind wheelchair user who is the original anime’s main character’s younger sister. The story diverges early on, with Lelouch being apparently killed instead of contracting CC. Searching for her brother, Nunally encounters a magical creature of her own, which upon contracting gives her a magical mecha and ability to see through the machine’s sensors. It’s a silly story, but nonetheless very entertaining.
I also know a few more BL stories that feature disabled characters, though they are either one-shots or the disability appears late into the story and is not very well handled, so I'm reluctant to recommend them.
no subject
Date: 2021-07-11 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-07-11 02:09 pm (UTC)Also suggest adding some pics from the comics to show the art style.