When I first started reading Asou, the stories just didn’t catch me, but recently… Recently I’ve been re-reading them and wondering how I missed it. The stories are very quiet, so much so that I get this feeling that the characters are in a post-apocalyptic world and there isn’t much going on outside of their area. I imagine a country sparsely dotted with the remains of a once lively civilization. Transportation still exists, but the concept of rush-hour is no more; there aren’t enough people traveling at any given point of the day to fill more than a train car or two, and even if there were, no one’s rushing these days.
Emphasizing this ghost world are her starkly contrasted drawings. Minimal tone patterns, but a lot of black and white butting up against each other in an unforgiving way. It makes me feel cold the way an unexpected breeze in a dark room with no open windows makes you feel cold. It’s a quiet that asks you to think about what’s not being said. I like it.