"the last love song on this little planet."
saishuu heiki kanojo
written and illustrated by takahashi shin
genres: action, drama, psychological, romance, slice of life, tragedy
demographic: seinen
chapter count: 72
released: 2000
synopsis: shy chise and nervous shuji are high school seniors in a small town and have just started dating. but everything changes when shuji discovers that chise has been engineered by the japanese self defense force to transform into the ultimate weapon! soon chise is torn between realizing her potential as a devastating fighting force and her desire to share a bowl of ramen with her new boyfriend!
written and illustrated by takahashi shin
genres: action, drama, psychological, romance, slice of life, tragedy
demographic: seinen
chapter count: 72
released: 2000
synopsis: shy chise and nervous shuji are high school seniors in a small town and have just started dating. but everything changes when shuji discovers that chise has been engineered by the japanese self defense force to transform into the ultimate weapon! soon chise is torn between realizing her potential as a devastating fighting force and her desire to share a bowl of ramen with her new boyfriend!
overall feelings: incredible, i really cant articulate into words how good it is
i really, really love stories about love. those are the best kind of stories to me. it doesn't matter if it's romantic, familial, or platonic-- the idea of connection between one person to another is a beautiful thing.
saikano is special to me because of that. both shuji and chise feel like real people that you can see existing because of the way they are towards each other. they're messy people. they hide things from each other. they struggle at communicating about their feelings straightforwardly. they have very particular perceptions of one another that end up eroding their relationship at times. they create a distance that feels almost insurmountable to close with one another. but... in spite of all that, they still love each other so much.
saikano is special to me because of that. both shuji and chise feel like real people that you can see existing because of the way they are towards each other. they're messy people. they hide things from each other. they struggle at communicating about their feelings straightforwardly. they have very particular perceptions of one another that end up eroding their relationship at times. they create a distance that feels almost insurmountable to close with one another. but... in spite of all that, they still love each other so much.
love and pain almost feel synonymous in this manga, in a way that feels like they need each other to exist. the entirety of the story feels like an uphill battle between shuji and chise trying to navigate through the uncertainties of their little world. their own personal issues and extraneous circumstances obstruct them from truly being with each other that it feels like if the world was slightly kinder to either of them it'd work out more.
this world is an awful place to live in right now. i don't think later on when anyone is currently reading this review it has gotten much better either. its become engulfed with hate-- the proliferation of social media, artificial intelligence, disinformation, echo chambers, pollution, oppression, genocides... i wallow in privilege to reaffirm my occasional optimism while others lack the circumstantial means to be able to do so. that's the unfortunate truth of it all.
the only thing we're capable of doing is love. our lives aren't guaranteed to be lived out fully. tomorrow we may die early and we wouldn't know, but that's what should drive us to love. to love the earth we live on, the family we live with, the friends we've made, the familiar faces of the neighbors we see every morning, the people in the crowd we pass by with their own unique lives too, and the lovers we've found and made through the friction we've experienced.
the only thing we're capable of doing is love. our lives aren't guaranteed to be lived out fully. tomorrow we may die early and we wouldn't know, but that's what should drive us to love. to love the earth we live on, the family we live with, the friends we've made, the familiar faces of the neighbors we see every morning, the people in the crowd we pass by with their own unique lives too, and the lovers we've found and made through the friction we've experienced.
but when we do love, we experience pain too. when we misunderstand each other, say hurtful things to one another, or feel unreciprocated by the end of it, the truth seems like it manifests itself at its truest form. the miserable, ugly truth that love isn't worth it. but part of what makes it so meaningful and valuable is when you choose to love in a world that doesn't expect you to be. a world that is filled with war, rape, poverty, and disease. the minute we lose love is when the world is truly lost. living creatures do many unforgivable things. they hurt others and always want their way. and yet, they fall in love, and they unite with those they love. they commit thousands of sins and go on living, but they love with all their hearts.
every page of this manga oozes with this polarizing depiction of either extremity. shuji will cry in desperation into the voiceless unresponsive sky about the awful things he's went through: seeing the friends he's made for so long succumb to the war that wrongfully took away what could've been a wonderful senior year, the familiar restaurants and streets that they used to walk by now concrete dust and rubble, occupied by tanks and armed forces. he's scared of the idea of intimacy after being molested and taken advantage of for so long by a person he was close with for so long, and it seeps into how he's with chise. and conversely, chise grapples with her unsteadily slipping humanity as her biological weapon systems take over her, and she's now faced with the heartless reality that she has taken the lives of thousands of people. and despite the power she holds in her hands to decide whether the world can live or die, she couldn't keep shuji as close as she wanted to, because she was scared of how he'd see her at her most vulnerable. at the end of it all, she was still a little girl who wanted a normal childhood and life.
on the other hand though, you'll see shuji and chise adorably pretending to be husband and wife in a new village they discovered to stay in. they're a little shaky in their newfound lifestyle, but they still want to make it work, and they know it will, because they'd see each other at the end of what finally feels like a normal day after so long. but then it's ripped away from their desperate fingers, at the second even a semblance of normalcy is established, and they're catapaulted back into the cruelty this world is capable of being. but they still keep going anyway. chise will be at her weakest state, frail, and be unable to speak despite all her power. and shuji would give her a reassuring smile and take care of her. cut her hair, serve her food, and still do his best to listen to her even if the words won't discernibly exit her mouth. and it never fails to fucking get me, man.
saikano is incredibly naive, but part of that allows the depths of humanity to truly shine through it. nothing will ever beat the feeling of seeing shuji and chise finally hold hands together after what felt like an eternity of them separate, after witnessing their own fair share of sin, death, and tragedy. they run into the horizon that holds a sunset which might not exist for either of them tomorrow, but they want to pull through it together.
we live in a culture of love, even if the world doesn't show it as much as it could. love songs encompass the daily billboard with all of its childlike idealizations of romance and human connection. and the continued emphasis of "the last love song on this little planet" at the end of each volume really does show it. love songs are hardly realistic, and saikano knows that it isn't either. but that's okay. more than okay. because it understands that love is worth it. and it means it with every little ounce of heart it has.
chise is cute... but slow. she's small and shy. she's also clumsy and her grades are below average, except for world history. she says, "i'm sorry" a lot. her motto is "i want to be strong." she's my girlfriend. in the end, the earth made a noise that sounded like chise's heartbeat. it was the last love song of this little planet, and us. it was our love song. we're going to fall in love. we're going to live.
we live in a culture of love, even if the world doesn't show it as much as it could. love songs encompass the daily billboard with all of its childlike idealizations of romance and human connection. and the continued emphasis of "the last love song on this little planet" at the end of each volume really does show it. love songs are hardly realistic, and saikano knows that it isn't either. but that's okay. more than okay. because it understands that love is worth it. and it means it with every little ounce of heart it has.
chise is cute... but slow. she's small and shy. she's also clumsy and her grades are below average, except for world history. she says, "i'm sorry" a lot. her motto is "i want to be strong." she's my girlfriend. in the end, the earth made a noise that sounded like chise's heartbeat. it was the last love song of this little planet, and us. it was our love song. we're going to fall in love. we're going to live.
i think my friend said it best when he said "this won't be the last time we'll witness the lives of shuji and chise". maybe now or sometime in the future, we might find ourselves in the same position too. and even if that's the case and we face the same conflicts they do, we still experience human connection. and that's something worth treasuring.
now more than ever i realize how interconnected i am with everyone around me. how important they are to me and how important i am to them. even if they'll be gone or leave my life, i'll still carry them with me, wherever i go. and isn't that special?
so, i want to keep living, because i have to. i owe it to myself to. because i love this world so much, and i love you for letting me into yours, and continuing to let me do so. because when we're at the very edge of our fragile existence and i see you, i'll be able to smile knowing that we get to share in it together.
now more than ever i realize how interconnected i am with everyone around me. how important they are to me and how important i am to them. even if they'll be gone or leave my life, i'll still carry them with me, wherever i go. and isn't that special?
so, i want to keep living, because i have to. i owe it to myself to. because i love this world so much, and i love you for letting me into yours, and continuing to let me do so. because when we're at the very edge of our fragile existence and i see you, i'll be able to smile knowing that we get to share in it together.