Okay, so technically I didn’t like this because so many awful things happened. But I think it was well done.

Energy: Visceral. Compulsive. Devastating.
Scene: 🇯🇵 Set in Tokyo, Japan.
Perspective: Observing the day-to-day struggles of a cast of high school students.

🐩 Tail Wags: The startling, sad, but believable storylines. Illustration style.

🤔 Random Thoughts:
Throws every bad thing that could happen to someone as a teen at the reader, but it didn’t feel gratuitous. It seemed plausible.

Check content heads-up as a lot of it is graphic especially when you can watch it play out on the page.

This was originally from the ‘90s and it feels that way. Some of it didn’t age well, but the topics and outcomes aren’t irrelevant for today. Footnotes provide context when popular media is referenced from that time.

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🤓 Reader Role: Watching the scene unfold getting to understand the group dynamics and backstories.
🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, sensory, gritty.
🔥 Fuel: Character de-evolution, parallel plots, and atmospheric tension. Who will survive, who will succumb, and will there be justice?
📖 Cred: Hyper-realistic to plausible.

Mood Reading Match-Up:
Stagnant water. Canadian goldenrod. Factory smoke. Steam whistle. School bell. Tears. Faint ocean breeze. Sewage. Ozone.
-1980s/’90s high school drama
-Cruel coming-of-age tragedies
-Harsh life struggles
-Dark foreboding atmosphere
-Teen psychological horrors

Content Heads-Up: Homophobia, homophobic slurs. Outing (by friends). Bullying (physical assault, humiliation, name-calling, threats). Toxic relationship. Adult/minor relationship. Fatphobia. Sexual content (consenting; graphic, on page; rough off page). Corpse (discovery, disposal). Eating disorder (bingeing, purging; on page). Violence (attack, strangling). Murder. Cheating on romantic partner. Pregnancy. Abortion (discussion of). Obsession, unrequited love. Animal cruelty (cat torture, death; on page). Fire (fatality). Suicide. Blood. Miscarriage. Rape (on page). Vomit. Body fluids (semen). Drug use.

Rep: Japanese. Gay. Lesbian. Heterosexual. Cisgender.

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Kodansha Comics, Vertical Comics, and NetGalley.

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

I was totally captivated by this story. The plot is dark and gritty and gets under your skin. The different characters all have very different baggage to carry (bullying, anorexia, the search for oneself). The narrative style is very uncompromising and unembellished and portrays this feeling of nirvana and a certain hopelessness. The drawings and the complexity of the plot reminded me of the narrative style of Fuyumi Sōryō (Mars, Eternal Sabbath), whose series I loved as a teenager. I can't really put it into words, except to say that I found the drawings and panels incredibly impressive and expressive and the narrative absolutely captivating. If you like dark and melancholy stories with a touch of nostalgia and seriousness, you should definitely pick up this one!

The most absurdly melodramatic high school comic I've ever read. Teenagers - kids - behaving like gangsters and psychopaths and nobody steps in and says anything or thinks how weird it all is. I couldn't buy any of it. Saying "well it was the '70s" doesn't cut it either - this is just plain silly. Boring non-stories featuring reprehensible scumbags, this manga was trying way too hard to seem edgy and shocking. Instead it comes off as, ironically, childish. The worst manga I've read in some time - no wonder it's unknown.

I thought the pacing was a bit off, where certain scenes that I expected to happen over a page was dealt with in one box. In that same vein, I felt like a lot of the story was expositioned rather than shown to the reader. I also think that the story suffered from too many serious stories only being touched upon in a superficial level.

5 stars

I am new to Kyōko Okazaki and this was such an impactful manga for me. I am not even sure how to explain the plot because I feel like I will give important aspects of character dynamics away, and I could list the plot out in spoilers, but I don't want to do that for this review. I think River's Edge just has to be experienced without knowing what to expect. Just know that this is a Josei manga that looks at feminist, queer, and coming-of-age themes set in a high school that is located nearby a river and there's a dead body that is being observed similarly to the boys in Stand by Me (The Body by Stephen King). I gave this 4 stars when I finished it in my reading notes, and then I couldn't stop thinking about it. The next I purchased all of Kyōko Okazaki's mangas that have been translated and I can't wait to read them. I am a fan!

This book was deep and intimate. An interesting slice of life into Japan in the 90s. Would recommended.

This book was sad and dark and hopeless and nihilistic. I am sure I am too sheltered to appreciate it properly because a lot of the times I was just asking myself "why are they doing this?".
I really don't know how realistic it is and all the reviews saying it makes me a bit worried, for me it was more soap opera like, when everything goes wrong and everybody's main motivation seems to be to cause as much chaos as possible.
The book touches on a lot of heavy topics, so look for trigger warnings.

Recommended sure
for a look at a darker piece of life for the time, for a "slice of life" story where the slice is pretty grim and dirty

Thoughts:
Look, this is not for kids just because it's a graphic novel. It's got full naked bodies and corpses and violence and eating disorders and animal abuse and lots of other dark and heavy stuff. Please, be ready for it if you read this. I had to take some breaks after certain moments that pierced me through.

My best description of this is that it's like slice of life, but the life is shit. Everyone is unhappy in some way in this story, and it's all very dark and sad. There's no resolution; things don't get better; people don't change. You just stay with them for a while and see how they live, and you end it knowing that's still how they live. Don't come here looking for an arc of "learn and grow" because it's not here. This is not an indictment at all, it's just not the kind of story being told in this. If I understood correctly this is a story based on a poem, which is included at the end and was a bit harrowing (which made sense after reading the story that was meant to reflect it, I believe).

If you asked me what's the point or the takeaway of this story, I have no idea. The randomness of life is what I felt from this, and particularly the randomness of the pain that some people just get dumped with over and over. It's just kind of like "this is how it was and how it continued to be" even when it was shitty. And hey, maybe that *is* the point, you know? Things don't always get better. Things don't always work out. You just have to keep going. And in that, it was darkly compelling.

While the story is ugly, the art is not. There's a tinge of wildness to it that matches the desperate wildness of the characters, each showing it in their own way at some point in the story. Sometimes I had to really pause and see the whole panel, which made the story that much more poignant and piercing because I would have to really focus on a scene of something inevitably terrible. I couldn't just glance at it and turn away because I had to pay attention in order to really *see* it, and I feel like that mirrors what life needs to be in order to accomplish anything: really look at the ugliness and pain, or else you'll never be able to understand those things in order to move past them. Maybe I'm reading too much into it all, but that's kind of how this book made me feel. Somber, reflective, a touch morose.

Overall I do recommend this but only if you know that it's a darker vibe and filled with pain (and triggers).

Thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for a free advanced copy. This is my honest review.

Definitely pay attention to the trigger warnings for this, it doesn't hold back.

Sad and depressing and not a lot of anything else, but that can be kinda good sometimes. A difficult read, and I felt like some of the plot was poorly handled, but also this was originally written in the 90s and definitely feels like a product of its time so I maybe I shouldn't judge it so harshly? Could have done with some actually happiness in its conclusion, but again maybe that's not the point of this.

Overall a difficult one to review, maybe at the time it was received better. Maybe this will really speak to someone. I just felt like something was lacking, which is a shame because the initial setup was interesting, I was invested for sure. I just wish it hadn't felt so blunt and depressing.

ARC courtesy of NetGalley.

⭐️⭐️ It was OK, I can see why some loved it
Set in the 90's in a high school in Japan, these characters are vapid, brutal, and sort of insufferable. Teenagers often times are, but this group was especially cruel, except for the main character.

The artwork is gorgeous and the text is  beautifully lyrical in places. For that I can see why some would love this story, I just couldn't get past how dysfunctional these kids were to themselves and those around them.

Thank you to Kodansha Comics & Vertical Comics, NetGalley, and author Kyoko Okazaki for providing me with a digital ARC copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review. In River's Edge is out June 27, 2023.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

River’s Edge by Okazaki Kyoko is a manga about the life of teenagers in Tokyo during the 90s, a difficult time in Japan’s history with the bubble economy bursting and an increase in gang violence. Wakakusa Haruna is a high school student whose former flame is still obsessed with her and bullying their classmate, Yamada. As Haruna spends more time with Yamada, her actions have far-reaching consequences for more than just her.

One of the best parts is how Haruna is, ultimately a small piece of the puzzle with her choices leading to far bigger problems than she ever could have imagined. Yamada is a closested gay man and Kozue is a closested Queer young woman who is looking to drop out of high school to pursue a career in acting. Both characters come out to Haruna because they feel safe with her. Yamada and Kozue are also both interested in the macabre and dead bodies, an interest Haruna does not share but she does not judge them.

Kannonzaki, Haruna’s kind of boyfriend, gets involved with her best friend, Rumi, as he continues to pursue Haruna. Yamada’s beard, who is unaware that she is a beard, sees Haruna and Yamada getting closer and grows volatile. All of these threads converge into an explosive night that both changes them and passes by so quietly that you wonder if it will impact them forever.

There’s something both fascinating and real about how Ozakaki Kyoko made Haruna both passive and yet active. In choosing to befriend Yamada, Haruna’s actions do push the plot forward, but the actions of others have far more dire consequences; Haruna is somewhat floating within their stories even if she is the connective thread between all of them and her continued dismissal of Kannonzaki and friendships with Kozue and Yamada are what pushes everything forward. Is she the main character or is she the instigator and there is no main character?

Trigger warning for depictions of corpses, SA, and mentions of drug dealing and dead animals

I would recommend this to fans of manga that is centered on contemporary life and the more difficult parts of it, readers looking for a manga or graphic novel delving into the treatment of Queer people in the 90s, and those looking for a quick read that will leave them thinking for hours afterwards.

I usually don't shy away from hard themes and I like books with sad and/or complicated stories. but this one was just too bizarre for me, glorifying corpses and rotting and dying for no reason (plot-related). everyone but the main character is demented in this book. and the content warning was not completed at all. I DNF at animal cruelty.

I love Kyoko Okazaki's works, however I think that River's Edge is the weakest of her translated manga.

This story follows a bunch of high school students in their daily lives, they struggle with bullying, eating disorders and romance drama. I liked this better when it was a more contemplative narrative, but it digs well into the melodrama and I found it too much.
As always Okazaki's style is stunning, she is the absolute queen of screen tones and her character design is sharp and cool.

A one-shot manga from 30 years ago, I think though some things feel a bit outdated, a lot of the themes resonate today.

The main narrator is Wakakusa, a high school girl with a boyfriend she doesn’t care much about, who after an encounter with a bullied and closeted classmate, Yamada, is introduced to his secret: a decaying corpse by the river. Following this, things start to spiral around them and the people in their lives.

Apparently this was translated into English recently, even though it was first published in 1993, and is by an author who was ahead of her time for portraying female sexuality in manga. Read the content warnings because this is a heavy read and deals with many topics including death, teen pregnancy, abortion, eating disorders, and homophobia. But after reading it, it does stay with me, as I try to figure out how the characters ended up in this spiral at the end, why they did what they did, where they’re coming from, and why more than I expected are so fascinated by a decaying corpse. It’s weird, but also weirdly sympathetic, like I understand where they’re coming from, which I think is some very good characterization. The art style feels simplistic compared to other manga and I wasn’t a huge fan of it initially, but I get used to it, like it does remind me of illustrations you’d see in a fashion magazine.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC!

This was kind of a sad story, well maybe not even kind of, it WAS a sad story, but it held my attention the whole time. I really liked the art style a lot too. It blows my mind that so much bullying and abuse could happen on school campus and nearby, without the school ever getting involved to stop it, but I definitely know that that does happen in places. I'm sad that the only escape the characters had from this environment was to leave entirely.

I've read a lot of manga over the last year or two (thanks Libby/NetGalley/the library system!) and with so many 'set in high school but fluffy and youthful and hopeful' it was sort of nice (??) to read something both set in a period of change in Japan (the 90s) and also something more realistic and grimy and messy, people too intertwined with each others' lives just in high school with really nothing else to do but take everything too personally and get stuck there. There are a lot of real life stories like this, and I appreciated the raw openness of telling it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha for the eARC in exchange for review!

This book was a rollercoaster of emotions and WTFS, it really shows some darker sides to people and how secrets can be seen as something it's not and how crazy some people can be. This story really touched on some topics we don't talk about a lot.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha for the e-arc!

I was familiar with this author's works and their impact but hadn't gotten around to reading any of their work. I finally decided to change that and I wasn't disappointed. River's Edge is the story of high schoolers trying to survive in terrible conditions. This book was dark and touched on a lot of heavy themes. Some were handled with care while others felt pushed to the wayside until the end. I think if you go into it expecting happy endings, you will be disappointed. Overall, I felt this did a solid job in the character work but the storytelling could have been improved.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this one, but I think it didn't end up entirely working for me. It touched on a lot of heavier topics, and I enjoyed the art style, but the story itself never fully clicked with me. I can appreciate that the intention was to be a darker story, and one that handled a lot of heavy and mature topics, but I wasn't convinced by the overall execution of the story.

Sad teens do sad teen things for significantly too long and it's sad. That's about it, just like everything else in this genre it brings nothing new to it and the art is kind of painful to my eyes.