It’s official. I adore Sagawa Miku. Reading her works makes me so happy and gushy and giddy. And wrapped up in all of the sweetness are some great moments. It’s interesting how she sort of dangles some of the BL clichés about for the sake of acknowledging them, but just sweeps right on by them or takes a bat to them as if she was swinging at a piñata without the blindfold. And her characterizations are so well thought out.
The stories she tells are about love and romance, but the characters aren’t just focused on getting with this one or that one; most of them have things going on in their lives that would be an issue regardless of the state of their courtship or unrequited love. Some of these things may play a big part in the progression of the story and some may just be story details that enrich the world the characters live in.
I’m a fan of the way she handles assumed unrequited love and misunderstandings; I think this is where her dialogue and interactions shine. All of the multi-layered people interacting with each other, laughing with each other crying, yelling, teasing, kissing, embracing, supporting, arguing, and simply existing with each other make all the wonderful, lively, hilarious, sad, angry, sexy, and cute moments in Sagawa’s story possible.
And her art! I like it so much. Good body proportions, clear facial expressions, and her hair styles! She goes from bald, to buzz, to pixie, to crew, to messy mops, to long and luxurious. When she draws people standing with their arms crossed, the forearms actually falls over the bottom of the rib cage rather than the over the navel. I’ve grown accustomed to seeing the latter and don’t really mind it too much anymore, but it’s always nice to see less stylized body proportions. She uses a lot of poses, so her panels are interesting to look at and a lot of the story can be told without words even though she’s never short on them.
I get so happy just thinking about reading one of her stories. I always have fun and I always need more.