Full Moon O Sagashite

(Viz, 2005)
™ and © 2001 Arina Tanemura
Read right to left; black and white graphic novel.

Twelve-year-old Mituki has throat cancer but refuses a life-saving operation that would render her mute because she dreams of being a singer. Then, two wacky harbingers of death grant her a stay of execution and the ability to become a 16-year-old so she can fulfill her dream. These avatars of death can also manifest themselves as plush funny animals and in this form periodically pop up, like Cinderella’s mice, to get the hero out of jams. They help Mituki ditch her strict, traditionally Japanese grandmother who forbids her to sing because she hates music, since it’s taken from her everyone she’s ever loved. Even worse, we learn she really only wants to sing because she’s pining for a boy named Eichi who moved to America.

But it still doesn’t answer such obvious questions as: Why does Mituki refuse the operation when her illness has left her too weak to sing? Or why doesn’t the grandmother just force her to have the operation?

— S. A. Bennett

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