Kabi NagataRezensionen

A lot of reviews are talking about how “rough” and “difficult to read” this series gets. But the fact is that the experiences described in this volume are in fact how many people live their lives - with instability, and fear, without understanding that support is always there whether they know it or not.

I want to buy copies of Nagata Kabi’s books and give them to people in my life. She frankly displays her experiences with hospitalization. We see self-hatred, spiraling thought processes, and grace with economy and emotion. She’s a master of the form and I can’t wait to see what comes next.

I remember reading Fun Home and the diaries of Ariel Schrag as a baby gay and feeling seen, probably for the first time.

Reading Nagata Kabi’s works feels the same way. We need graphic, well told stories of the queer experience out there. The fact that these diaries also are so much about the feelings of isolation so prevalent to the human experience make them practically essential texts.

I don’t know, I just feel like she’s a major talent and it makes me feel so good when I’m at my lowest points not to feel alone. Her work definitely makes me want to create, and that’s no small thing for someone who hates so much of what he does as much as I do.

Anxiety about family, friends, work, sex, and overall enjoyment of life explored in painstaking detail, with humor and humanity. I’m obsessed.

Queer coming of age graphic novels centered around mental illness are my bread and butter. This is one of the best I’ve read and I’m looking forward to reading the next one!

I find Kabi Nagata's books terribly frustrating to read. I just keep wanting to yell at her to stop doing what she's doing as I turn page after page of bad decisions.

I'll keep reading her books, because who can turn away from such a trainwreck, but they are hell on my blood pressure.

My rating is slightly low (I was sort of hovering between 3 and 4) because I felt it was a little disjointed. Like there were lots of good parts but although it was basically an autobiographical story I was confused as to the timeline of what happened. She sometimes has friends, sometimes doesn't, sometimes is depressed, sometimes isn't, sometimes working, sometimes isn't, and it feels confusing. I realise this maybe seems pedantic! Like, there were sections I really appreciated and a few panels which were brilliant. Just the overall experience was a little confusing to my small brain.

I really wasn't sure what to expect with this memoir but it certainly satisfied.

My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness is a coming of age story for awkward 'late-bloomers', if you will. The author is so frank and open about her confusion with sex, desire, and communication, that it feels like everyone will see a piece of themselves within the pages even if they're nothing like her.

My personality is as far from Kabi Nagata's as is possible to be, except that we're both lesbians, but I still found her depictions of depression and anxiety so deeply relatable, capturing the exact feeling.

Alright, I love this series half to death and it's shaped me into who I am today, but I'm beginning to see it as a glorified BlogSpot. The only difference is that this is a lot more focused. Maybe this is what "autobiography" really means but it's hard to think that anyone could have enough perspective of their lives to, not only recount, but derive meaning from it. Ironically, that's one of the reasons why I love this series so much. I genuinely empathize with what Nagata is going through and, whenever she learns something, I learn along with her.

"My Wandering Warrior Existence" doesn't show exponential growth, but she does learn (and I learn along with her) that love does doesn't mean you have to have faith in all of humanity but just in that one person you're beginning to warm over. Furthermore, she also discovers that, once you understand what loves is, you no longer yearn for it as you already have love for yourself. Aw, isn't that sweet? I've actually been trying to network and make more friends after I reading this. Not to fill a void in my heart lol, but because I realized I didn't need to be so paranoid about people.

Luv this series, XOX, Sincerely,
Ava

Another honest peek into Kabi Nagata's life. This sequel makes me want to see more, and hopefully her life continues to improve.

It was good. Nothing mind blowing but a really sweet and encouraging story.

Five books in and the thirtysomething author remains firmly stuck in questioning limbo on matters of identity, gender identity, sexual identity, and relationships both romantic and familial. There's an interesting chapter that explains that gown on the cover, but then the rest just bogs down with muddling and whining and fidgeting. This volume is as fascinating and frustrating as all the previous ones, guaranteeing that I'll pick up the next one if it appears.

Trigger warning: A horrifying sexual assault and its appalling aftermath is recounted.

Nagata Kabi's fourth autobiographical manga finds her hospitalized for acute pancreatitis and fatty liver at just thirty years old. This development isn't too shocking if you've followed the details of her descent into alcohol abuse in the previous volumes. She has had mental health issues as she has dealt with her sexual identity, inability to develop a romantic relationship, and the extremely negative reaction of her parents to her tell-all comics. She had hoped to turn to writing fiction to appease them, but coping with her life-threatening condition puts her back on the road to confessional diaries.

It's painful to watch her suffering and the choices she makes in the course of this memoir, but I could not turn away.

A very climactic, but also incredibly hopeful final volume. Alcoholism, hospitalization, and a return to self-harm before the author finally started picking up the pieces. She realized that her depression was worse because she was selfish and only thought of herself, so she began practicing looking outward and thinking about others’ happiness. She began making more of an effort to be with others, and she also practiced better self-care. She concludes by saying that the journey is far from over, but she now recognizes she has a support network that loves her, and being able to recognize that love enables her to fight her depression and possibly find more love in the future.

The emotional dissonance Kabi felt in both loving and resenting her family, how that sent her into a spiraling depression, trying desperately to find out what she needs in life to be happy, striving for it but not realizing her happiness, and coming to these tiny realizations about herself and her life, but being unable to do anything initially, and then finally achieving something that resembles independence and a hope for being loved and being able to love in return - all of it resonated so deeply with me. A big part of me wants this story to be a work of fiction because it hits so close to home, and I’m somewhat afraid of what the next volume will bring. However, I’m rooting so hard for Kabi, and myself by proxy, and I want to find out if she somehow makes it to a place that resembles happiness, or if her struggle will just continue.

A gripping view of what depression and anxiety looks like with a ton of sexual repression. This manga really captures a lot of the struggles someone with mental health issues goes through, and how difficult it can be to cope with in a society that is ill-equipped to identify what’s going on and how to help.

It’s not all sad though. The author finds hope in small moments with individuals throughout the story. Because of the kindness and patience these people give her, she is able to look into herself and discover things that give her the ability to go on and try to improve her life.

My favorite thing about this manga is that she points out how the struggle is ongoing despite all she’s done to pull herself through the darkest times. She’s still struggling, still learning, and still growing. I feel that is what makes this story the most accessible and real.

I think we all just wanna hug her, and then pinch her. Like, with nails. It's nice to catch up with her and her honesty and see how she's learned. It's weird to read about her writing what I'm reading, and it feels so present and close; weirdly, the most 'real' feeling nonfic I've read? It's like a direct conversation.

"A reason to live, the power to live, a place to belong in this world." This quote sums up this novel. A very sweet but thoughtful manga. The struggle is real.

Starts slow and a little frustrating, but that frustration—with someone who can reflect on their struggle but not extract themselves from it—was good for me to sit with, because it goes somewhere good and insightful.

An honest look at how depression, repression, and anxiety can shape a young adult life. The kind of reflection and introspection here feels far more honest than the intellectual posturing of most autobiographical writing from the west, and almost all writing from men. Sexuality is used as a lens into self-knowledge; this is not smut (or even particularly graphic, and in context of the framing and narrative not really erotic, just raw). Very good.

Wow same

There absolutely has to be content warning written on the first page, or the back of the cover for the English release of the doujin.

There are descriptions and drawings of self-harm with a sharp tool (including scars, but also a person actively self-harming). I've found the book very interesting as someone who is heavily struggling with schizophrenia and resulting depression and loneliness - I'm also in a same-sex relationship for 6 years which I have to hide from my family, so I hoped to seek comfort in this book. I haven't seen any mentions of self-harm nor eating disorders, which absolutely have to be disclosed. I've been struggling with the former for over a decade and I really wish I knew before I've started reading this book, because I would avoid it - it is definitely triggering for people who struggle not to relapse. There are also quite detailed drawings of very thin bodies and mentions of low weight with direct BMI disclosing.

If you're also actively struggling with self-harm or eating disorders, please think twice before reading this book. It's only for people who are fully recovered or have never had issues with self-harm nor ED, and there is no written warning that it contains such subjects.½

when a memoir is lacking it always feels a bit like i'm saying something about the writer's life is wrong or missing or not what i wanted, when really it's something in the telling and the book itself. i almost always want more from graphic novels and memoirs and this is no exception. there are so many missing pieces here. which is too bad, because i'm not sure that there can be enough books out there about self-acceptance and mental illness.

the title is misleading because this really isn't about a lesbian experience of anything. she's incidentally lesbian (which is great; it's just implied that she's lonely because she's a lesbian and that's incorrect) and incidentally lonely as well (because it's actually about depression and low self-esteem, which leads to loneliness as a byproduct). it's a book about self-realization in baby steps. she's made progress by the end, but it's realistically not a lot. it's about caring more about what she thinks about herself and what she wants to be than what her parents think about how she should be. it's about human interaction and touch, and how depression gets in the way of those connections.

i understand that her use of an escort service was reaching out and was one of the things she was trying to do to bring herself back to herself, to make connection, to be herself and get what she needed when she knew no other way how. i have a hard time with it, though, with the idea of using someone else like that. someone who may not be able to truly fully consent to it. maybe it's different in japan than it is here.

her coming out of her depression struck me as - while her story, so true - a disservice to people with mental illness. it seemed like she realized that taking better care of herself would lead other people to treat her better, which would help her feel better about herself, so she just started doing it. it seems like it wouldn't have been that easy. in only one panel she said something about her therapist, and i don't think that therapy should be glossed over for someone with the long-term and wide array of issues that she has.

there was too much missing here for me to be satisfied, but still, i'm glad it's a story that's out there and is apparently resonating with other people who read it. she is brave to put this out there in all its messiness and with such raw honesty.

"Maybe I'll be able to look harder at the past by getting some experience in the present."½

Content warning for this manga: discussions of cutting, binging, and anorexia, and, if it wasn't obvious from the cover, there's on-page nudity and sex.

This volume begins with the author's first sexual experience, at age 28, in a love hotel with a woman from a lesbian escort agency. Only a few pages in, Nagata interrupts this scene to explain how she got to that point. After high school, nothing seemed to go the way she expected. She dropped out of university after six months, became depressed, developed an eating disorder, and couldn't seem to hold down a part-time job, much less the salaried position that her family expected her to have by that point. She gradually comes to the realization that a lot of her internal pain was the result of wanting love, comfort, and unconditional acceptance from parents (particularly her mother) who seemed unable to really understand her. And yes, the story does eventually get back to the scene in the love hotel, and it is awkward.

I was not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. I figured it'd be depressing and emotionally exhausting. Nagata was so fragile at times that it was painful to read, but she somehow managed to keep the tone relatively light. It also helped that this was clearly a look back at worse times in her life - Present-Day Nagata had done a lot of thinking, had figured out better paths to take, and was actually eating regular meals and feeling more like her own definition of "adult." She wasn't "cured," necessarily, but she was doing better.

I liked Nagata's frank and unflinching look at self-harm, eating disorders, her mental health issues as a whole and the toll they'd taken on her body (scars, a bald spot from hair pulling, etc.), the inadequacy of her own sex education (she realized after the incident at the love hotel that most of her expectations came from m/m erotic doujinshi, of all things), and more. I was a little surprised that she was willing to put so much of herself out there, but she even addressed this. Her explanations made sense, I guess, but still. I can just imagine the awkwardness after her parents read this volume (if they read it?).

The one part of the volume that threw me a bit was Nagata's somewhat Freudian exploration of her desire to be touched and held by women, which she decided was rooted in her constant clinging to her mother. She never quite came out and said it, but she seemed to see her lesbianism as being connected to all of this, as though it was a childish fixation she'd never grown out of.

Overall, I thought this was really good, and I plan to read Nagata's My Solo Exchange Diary as well.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)½

This entry is more frustrating than the previous two as the author mostly sets aside LGBTQ issues and focuses on the anxiety and depression which eventually result in her voluntary hospitalization following a strong bout of substance abuse.

Outside forces seem to be affecting the narrative as the author recounts how her family reacts to their depictions in the early volumes and realizes she is under some pressure to bring the series to a conclusion for the publisher. Some of the developments felt like backtracking to mend hurt feelings or exaggeration of progress for a happy ending.

Finally, there is the intriguing inclusion of one of the author's works of fiction. It was interesting to see the change of her art style to portray a sci-fi dystopia and to pick up on themes from her life evident in the story. That said, it wasn't a particularly good story.

Ah shit, this is so good.

I loved My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and basically finished it in one go. I also loved this one, but I very deliberately read it bit by bit, spread out over several days.

What I expected was, I don't know, more escort agency experiences maybe? But that's not what this volume is about. Instead, it struck me right in the feels with images for depression, for loneliness, with discussions of emotionally abusive parents and what it means to get away from them.

I cried a lot towards the end. I really hadn't expected this to be so relatable.

This is… really really good. And very relatable. And autobiographic. It's about a 28 year old who's never had sex and decides to hire an escort. It's also about depression, eating disorders, and other mental health stuff that makes life hard.

I didn't like the idea that once you're back to "being able to try", that alone will make life ok again. That… might work like that sometimes, but it certainly doesn't make for a good general rule and/or inspiration. And I didn't like the cissexist descriptions of bodies.

But as a whole, this is really good.