If you found an abandoned corpse would you come stare at it whenever you needed to feel better about your life? Rivers Edge is the kind of manga I love to find. While Okazaki Kyoko is one of mangas foremost and greatest josei authors shes tragically underknown in Englishspeaking communities. Her stories capture a kind of realism thats both tragic and comedic. People suffer are victims of their own selfimposed complexes and worries selfdestruct and yet theres always a sense of nihilistic levity. To worry too much about the horrors before them is to take life too seriously. Even then out of the stories of hers that Ive read Rivers Edge is the darkest. Pink was gleeful and flippant in its sliceoflife portrayal of how much easier life is when you dont worry too much. Helter Skelter was a grand tragedy of a largerthanlife celebrity whose facade began to break as she flew too close to the sun. And Rivers Edge is grounded focusing its tragedy on ordinary people with an air of realism inhabiting every way in which they hurt each other. Unlike those other two Rivers Edge is a study of a larger ensemble cast. The protagonist Wakakusa finds herself torn as her reckless boyfriend Kannonzaki bullies the secretly gay Yamada. In helping him she becomes embroiled in the web of relationships with Yamadas unsuspecting girlfriend Kanna and the young bulimic model Yoshikawa who you may remember from Helter Skelter. There isnt a singular goal to this narrative they carry on with their lives have conversations and clash for reasons that feel natural. Is it really realistic? That depends. No story truly can be but Rivers Edge shows one side of how Okazaki views reality and I think its an interesting one. Most highschool manga are written to embody certain fantasies of that era of life. Okazaki is here to explore its flaws not in the system but in the people themselves. Theres certainly a realistic flair to some of the dialogue in Yoshikawas eating disorder or in Yamadas sexuality. Theres a great conversation where he calls Wakakusa out for thinking that just because hes gay its appropriate to ask him overly sexual questions. Its the same kind of drama that might seem like it could be fully resolved if everyone just communicated but this is not your shonen or shojo where they fail to do so just to force conflict. Rivers Edges characters wouldnt feel like themselves if they truly told each other how they felt and that would probably make them hate each other more. It captures the imperfections of people who dont understand what they really want. You want to see Wakakusa call out her boyfriend. You want a climactic confrontation where she breaks up with him pledges to never have anything to do with him again. You dont get it and its not because this manga is realistic. Its because Wakakusa is a teenager who was never quite aware enough to realize that would be an option much less go through with it. Thats not to say its a tragedy. In the end her life goes on in a way you can accept no longer affected by Kannonzakis behavior. The end is woven surprisingly tight though for a story of this nature. Every plotline weaves together naturally in a way that would betray the sense of realism if not for how well its done. It doesnt feel like an ending Okazaki envisioned and contrived her story toward. It feels like the simple result of who the characters are. Thats the whole appeal of this manga. You wont get the drama of heightened reality but the characters are interesting and they find themselves in interesting situations. Its more about the people than the message but the message is as simple as how important it is to treat each other kindly. What hooks you isnt that simplicity but the complexity that arises when people fail at that. On a technical level Okazaki is as competent as ever. While perhaps offputting to those used to the stylization so common in the medium with its simply outlined eyes and mouths theres still a careful aesthetic and plenty of great composition and visual storytelling. The story can be a little more textdriven than it needed to be and the flow of dialogue bubbles was sometimes unintuitive flaws I didnt find in Pink or Helter Skelter. But like those two manga I would put Rivers Edge on a list of great character studies that anybody should read if theyre interested in such a thing in exploring josei or in exploring what great manga can be found beyond the mainstream.