ひばりの朝

HIBARI NO ASA

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
2
RELEASE
May 8, 2013
CHAPTERS
14

DESCRIPTION

Teshima Hibari is a 14 year old girl with a body that is more sensual than most girls her age. Her story includes the opinions and reactions of all of the people around her, as well as the actions of her own life. The chapters explore the thoughts and feelings of classmates and adults, men and women. The males often have romantic or sexual feelings for Hibari, while the women sometimes have feelings of inferiority or jealousy. Whether positive or negative, it seems everyone has a reaction to Hibari.

(Source: MangaHelpers)

CAST

Hibari Teshima

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

faktory
90/100
a heartrending deconstruction of the sexy schoolgirl trope.
note: this review will contain some general spoilers for the series. click the spoiler tag below for detailed trigger warnings that cover the series (but contain more significant plot spoilers). if you’re especially sensitive to this stuff, be careful, because this manga packs a real emotional wallop.

this manga contains themes of: sexual harassment, sexual assault, victim blaming, pedophilia, childhood sexual abuse, incest, and suicidal ideation.

now, onto the review:

from the very beginning of this manga, i was skeptical. more than skeptical, i was prepared for the worst—i only picked it up out of morbid curiosity, of sorts. now, after my second read-through, this time in the original japanese, i’ve decided to finally give this manga the review it deserves.

from the description alone, this seemed like it would be, at best, a tepid psychosexual lolita narrative. it set itself up that way, at first (in retrospect, very purposefully so—it is a deconstruction at heart, after all). the first couple chapters give relatively little insight into hibari as a character; the opinions of the people around her are essentially presented as facts about her. when her adult cousin mentioned early on that hibari had a crush on him, i took his word for it because, well, that’s what happens in these kinds of stories, isn’t it? perhaps i’m jaded from too many disappointing romanticized incest subplots, but i couldn’t even bring myself to be surprised. and yet, there is something deeply ominous stirring between the lines from the very beginning. the unsettling, looming shadow of a man on the very first page of the story. her cousin’s retrospective mantra: “i always overlook the important stuff”. i could sense that something was a little different here. so i kept reading.

and then, at the end of chapter two, the reader gets their first insight into the actual personality of the supposedly ~shy, sensual hibari-chan~:

…yeah. and things only get darker from there.

this story goes on to explore the variety of roles that adults play in the sexual victimization of young girls, both through their actions and, more strikingly, their inaction. women see hibari as “the other woman”, an object of jealousy and competition. men see her as the quintessential “slutty schoolgirl”, an object of desire and temptation. no one sees her as a child in need of protection—at least, no one who bothers to take responsibility and act on it. unfortunately, everything about this rings disturbingly true to life.

one of the most remarkable things i noticed about this manga was how organic the characters’ voices felt. huge kudos to the translators for this, too—yamashita obviously has a real gift for writing natural dialogue, and using it as a tool to delve into the intricacies of her characters psyches, but that sort of thing is very often lost in translation. this wasn’t at all the case here, though. all the grammatical and tonal nuances were kept remarkably intact across the language barrier: the fearful hesitancy, the lackadaisical teenaged chatter, the dissociative apathy, the vindictive anguish. as someone who’s dabbled in manga translation myself, i know exactly how hard that can be, so color me impressed.

another thing i want to bring up is the artwork. while for the most part, the style itself is fairly standard for josei, the mangaka pays very particular attention to the facial expressions and body language of her characters. hunched shoulders, fidgeting hands, thousand-yard stares. this is especially significant for this story, where so much is being left unsaid, and what is said is often based off of misinterpretations of facial expressions and body language. appearance is everything, here: what we choose to see is what we believe. so when people talk about how hibari “looks” a certain way, the author takes care to explore what that actually means. it’s lampshaded quite clearly with this line, when a male character finally comes to realize in hindsight that his belief in her sexual attraction to him was entirely the product of his own delusions, his sexualization of her making him see desire where there was none.

honestly, this is the only manga i’ve ever seen explore the issue of the male gaze with such clarity.

there is a significant flaw that comes to mind, however (significant plot spoiler below):

the sexual assault of hibari’s classmate michika felt like somewhat of a narrative punishment, at least at first. it struck me as odd for a story which otherwise treated these issues with such nuance and respect, that a sexual assault would be framed as a sort of karmic retribution for wrongdoing. especially considering the strong stance against victim blaming that the story takes as a whole, michika’s experience seems a bit too on the nose given that it happens right after she takes such glee in disclosing hibari’s own sexual trauma to her peers. although it is worth noting that michika’s sexual assault is still treated as appropriately traumatic and its psychological repercussions are still explored. this treatment does make it clear in the end that, ultimately, the sexual assault is not a form justice, and the bully is still a child herself who has been failed by society just as hibari has, which keeps this from being as big of an issue as it could have been.

like i said in the beginning, i was expecting this manga to rely on schoolgirl sexuality for psychological titillation, like so many other manga (and anime, and books, and movies…this isn’t just a problem in japan) have before it. instead, it turned out to be a chillingly realistic tale of the deep tole that institutionalized misogyny and rape culture take on young girls. in a medium that is especially rife with the hypersexualization of schoolchildren, this is the first manga i’ve seen take such an explicitly condemnatory tone on the matter. it is heartening to see that there are such talented and opinionated creators doing their part to push back against this issue. make no mistake, though—while this story makes no secret of its social commentary, it isn’t some sort of lifeless, cardboard cutout social awareness piece. it’s a deeply nuanced, incredibly moving, strikingly well-written and well-illustrated story. it just happens to also be a story with something very important to say.
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Benkei
86/100
A spoiler-free review of Hibari no Asa. Several facets of abuse.
════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Considerations ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ● __This is a spoiler-free review.__ ● __80+ in my rating means very good media.__ ● I've got to read this work on a friend's recommendation. I didn't look too much into the synopsis and just started reading. ● __This manga deals with heavy themes such as abuse, suicide, and depression__.If you feel like those themes are sensitive topics for you, please skip this review and the manga. __If you are struggling with any issue, call your country's hotline.__ Take care ♡. ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Story ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The story is centered on Teshima Hibari, a 14-year-old girl with a body that is more sensual than most girls at her age. The story covers her daily life while she deals with constant abuse and bullying from family and colleagues. The story is very cruel, and it feels like a hard pill to swallow. The story is focused on deconstructing several misunderstandings and showing several gruesome aspects of human beings through different characters. The desire for gossip, jealousy, anger, suicidal feelings, and many others. From a storytelling point of view, we always expect the characters to thrive and things to go well. That's the kind of story that we like to read about: heroes facing difficulties and enduring, never hesitating. This manga feels more realistic. People are more human and full of flaws. They doubt, they hesitate, and it makes the story just that much more impactful in my opinion. ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Art Style ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The art style is simple, the backgrounds are not very detailed, but they're not terrible either. The character designs are normal, they're not very unique, and you can see similarities between the designs. ‎ I don't think the focus of this work is the art itself, as it's more of a critical work. The transition between panels is very well done, gradually obscuring a panel to show how you can lose perspective. There are a lot of black and white panels to show the duality of thoughts and many other resources that are used to convey the feelings in the form of art. It's overall good in my opinion. ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Characters ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ There are a moderate number of characters in this work; the main character, her friend, family, and other supporting characters. They're well made. Each of the important characters gets one "talk" (that's how the author references chapters) exploring their minds and motivations. I feel like there's a sense of uniqueness, or should I say, each one has a critic for one different aspect that people can be. ‎ ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Conclusion ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ If you're like me, you skip everything and read only the conclusion because you don't want to get spoiled with other themes. So I will try to be brief on this point: __Read it.__ Hibari no Asa is definitely a drama-intense, "espresso depresso" manga, but it's able to show a lot of different sides of human beings and things that I really think are important for people to read. __Even if it's ugly, you can't turn a blind eye to the cruel side of humans.__
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