To Die In June

whether it’s wanting to kill someone or being in a time when people die, death makes really good material for a story, so i set out to draw “a manga where people enjoy dying.” not that it’s enjoyable. this grew out of a piece i did for the group exhibition “seira fuku kyouten” (sailor uniform scriptures) held in osaka, “umi yukaba”. i just couldn’t forget about the anachronous girls in uniform. like a painter depicting love, death, war, and faith, i felt like i wandered off all of those themes. and so i’ve put all of those into this work. what makes up the core of this story are themes like girlhood and motherhood, birth and loss, and various beliefs. much like my previous “la sagrada familia”, i put together a squad of 12 girl soldiers. their names are inspired by suicide weapons and the calendar months. (for example satsukibara nae is taken from satsuki(naezuki) which means may) i drew the boat in the middle using a plastic model. what’s a girl riding in the woman boat on the mother ocean? a girl, that’s all! please enjoy this story, of naive girls who haven’t yet discovered themselves, of love and war and revolution. and i would be delighted if you could watch over their battle until the very end.