Growing up entails more than accumulating candles on a birthday cake or watching the numbers of your age as they climb from single digits to double. Growing older and growing up are not the same thing. Nor is maturity automatically conferred with the passing years, it has to be learned. Physical maturity is one thing, but emotional maturity is quite something else. And part of the process of acquiring this mental acuity lies in the ability to make decisions which aren't necessarily what our hearts wish us to do, especially when there is another person involved. The road to adulthood is a rocky one, and nobody is more aware of it then Nanami Takahashi and Motoharu Yano. Brought together when Nana entered the high school that Yano was attending, they met almost by accident, when Nana could not remember the name of one of her fellow classmates, and Yano cheekily gave her the wrong name! And that was their beginning! Although at first she did not find him in the least charming, Nana finds herself drawn toward the handsome boy more and more as she begins to see another side of him, a more compassionate side. Eventually they began to go out, but their relationship has not been without its problems – such as Yano's ex-girlfriend, also named Nana, who was killed in an automobile accident while with an ex-boyfriend; Nana's younger sister Yamamoto whom Yano slept with after Nana's death; Yano's friend Take, who has feelings of his own for the cute and clueless Nana, and does not care for the way his friends treats her. And now they are being subjected to an even greater strain on their suffering relationship, when Yano's mom accepts a job offer which will entail moving to Tokyo, leaving her son in a quandary between his filial duties and the girl that he loves. And Nana has to decide whether she can ask him to stay with her, or give him the freedom to go to Tokyo and do whatever is best for him.
Highlights
As Volume 8 of We Were There opens, Christmas is a scant month away, and Nana turns her thoughts toward what to give Yano as a gift. Meanwhile, Yano is growing concerned about his mother – healthwise and financially. As he discusses money matters with her, he realizes that she will be carrying a heavy burden in Tokyo, and that he is part of that burden, although she insists that she will be fine, and that he needs to concentrate on his university exams, and she insists that he not even think about getting a part time job. Yano and Take get into a discussion about filial duty, Yano maintaining that not to worry his mother is a sign of his duty, and a worried Take asks if he intends to move with his mother, but Yano assures him that he wouldn't give his friend such a chance to get to Nana. Take confides Yano's doubts to his sister, who tells him that it would be better for Take if Yano left, so that then he could have a chance with Nana, and she then draws a comparison between Yano's mother and his dead girlfriend – both of them unstable and immature. Concerned, Yano approaches Nana and advises her to ask Yano to stay, surprising her, as she hadn't thought he was leaving. The time has come for them to make plans for college, and Yano is banking on Nana coming to Tokyo to attend the school of her choice, only to learn that she has changed her mind about those colleges, which he takes as a sign that she doesn't wish to be with him, to her dismay. When she goes to see Yano, to tell him her deepest feelings, she ends up talking to his mother, and discovers that she expects Yano to stay, not go with her to Tokyo. Nana then tells Yano how much she loves him and that she'll understand if he feels the need to go with his mother to Tokyo, and that she will wait for him. In the meantime, she has persuaded her parents to allow her to apply for a school outside of their home, and she chooses one in Tokyo. But Yano is worried that her goal is too high, and that she is doomed to fail and be left behind in Hokkaido. She tells him that she is not doing that for him, but for herself, and that she has a year in which to make it come true, if she works hard at her studies. After a discussion with Take, Yano decides he needs a little insurance, so he chooses a second university that is in Hokkaido, but asks that he not tell Nana about it. However, she finds out anyway. And the time is drawing closer to when his mother will leave, on December 24th, and Nana still doesn't know what he intends to do – the waiting is beginning to tell on her. And Nana is finding it more and more difficult to let go of him, if it comes to that!
Overall
It seems as if Nana and Yano can think of nothing else but the question of their separation, try as hard as they can not to dwell on it, but to prepare instead for a future together. If Nana is accepted into the university she wishes to attend in Tokyo – and if Yano goes there with his mother – their separation will only be for a year. A short time in the scheme of things, right? Or is it an impossibly long one, when outside forces are working against them as well. One night Yano gets drunk, and comes to Nana's house. She takes him to a nearby park where they can talk (and where her parents won't find him in this condition), and discuss their situation. Nana confesses tearfully to things she hadn't thought she would tell him. But the next day he believes he had a strange dream, so she never tells him the truth about it, keeping it to herself. Yano asks his mother for an advance on his allowance of twenty thousand yen in order to get something special for Nana for Christmas, and when his mother refuses, he tells her he'll make a deal with her….. With the money, he takes Nana on an overnight trip to a hot spring! An ecstatic Nana thinks they are going to spend Christmas together, until she learns that they are going the week before, and she realizes what the reality of the situation is. Decisions are never easy, and even those made with the best intentions aren't always easy to keep. But sometimes you have to think of someone else before yourself, no matter how much it hurts. And this hurts very much…..and the surprise ending is sure to bring a tear to the eye of even the most cynical. Young love is the hardest, because maturation involves change and in the process of becoming you, sometimes you lose the part of you that someone else wishes to hold on to. And sometimes you can lose the very things that keep you together. Is there any future for Nana and Yano, especially with Yamamoto going to Tokyo, and Take remaining in Hokkaido? Only time will tell.
Comicsonline gives We Were There, Volume 8, 5 out of 5 marimo straps.
