My Passionate Love Affair with Kabi Nagata....'s Work

Before we begin, I would like to say that this post covers deeper subject matters than what usually shows up on the blog: self-harm, alcoholism, hopitalisations, depression, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and more. I won't get too into details with certain things, but please be aware that these well come up. There's also a letter at the end to the author you can skip once you get there as it's technically the end of the article.

That being said, welcome back and enjoy.

 

 

Hello, Nagata Kabi. This is Nagata Kabi. How are you?

Hey, everyone. It's been... a long while, hasn't it? The last time I published something was four years ago, and even then, my mind was running out of ideas on how to continue the blog. There were so many things I wanted to do, so many feelings I was having at the time. I had just recently changed cities to where I am now, and I was feeling stuck emotionally and creatively, but we'll get on that later.

How have you all been? The world has changed so much in only four years, hasn't it? Even now, we're moving out of 2021 into a year that firmly doesn't sound real (2022—I was promised jetpacks and flying cars; what the hell, The Jetsons?). The years have gone by far too quickly while also feeling like they've stretched on twice their length. It's been a wild ride, to put it as mildly as possible. For the first time in a while, I'm looking at the world, really looking at the future, with mixed feelings, but it's far from my usual trappings of deep ambivalence or bottomless dread.

One of the quiet comforts that has occupied me in the time I've been gone has been the autobiographical works of Nagata Kabi (永田カビ). Her name first sparked interest in the English world back in 2016. I remember it being a big deal because publications I read that don't usually discuss anything past Europe even talked about it. I mean, if there's one thing American media likes, it's a "tell-all" or anything that comes close to that equivalence. I've never been terribly big on autobiographies/memoirs, and diary manga only catches me every so often provided that they're more funny than anything actually relatable or personal. I know that line of thought is completely ass backwards when it comes to engaging those kinds of works, but that very firmly sets me as outside the target demographic. I'm sure a lot of things I read growing up is what really put me off on the entire genre as a whole.

But there was something about Nagata's manga that made me want to engage.I think the artwork for My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness and the upfront title might have been what grabbed me so wholly. It said something to me that those two things could be so prominent, and most of the time, people had noting but positive things to say. 

I ended up picking through a few articles to read myself and browsing through whatever snippets I could read on Pixiv. I found myself engaged enough with what everyone and Nagata as the creator had to say, but getting actually to read it was an entirely different experience.

Despite my feelings on memoirs as a whole, I do hold some measure of respect for people who can bear to put their most embarrassing and selfish moments out there. It does help break down the illusion of perfection and remind us that most of everyone suffers in some way. And that their suffering and their coping won't necessarily be some ready-for-TV production—it'll just be raw and ugly and honest and theirs. Over the course of four manga and about thirteen-fifteen years overall, we get to see Nagata grow selfishly; we get to see her thought processes, her failings, her dependencies. And it's not always pretty. In fact, especially in her debut manga My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, a lot of it is just brutally, awfully human.

There are so many moments over the course of the series that I find unrelatable, but I still connected with her on different levels. I was never someone that chased after parental approval, but I was overly familiar with the aspect of failing to connect with other people through work or even wanting to maintain my work obligations. But also at the end of the day, this wasn't work that I was meant to relate with in some ways; it wasn't made for me. The fact that I can nod my head and be like "Yep, it's just like that" sometimes is genuinely a bonus. I'm here to engage with this artist on her own terms and walk away with my own thoughts on the matter. 

And hoo... Don't I have some thoughts.

In My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness, Nagata tells us about her bouts with eating disorders, familial hatred (both perceived and true), loss of virginity in a desperate attempt to grasp onto human connection, and just the struggle of trying to find purpose between work, family, and life as a whole. There are a great deal more that's covered in this first volume alone, but it also covers ten years of her life. That alone can be difficult to summarise, even with the amount of space she's given herself to do so in this work.

One thing that really hit was the random kindness of a stranger when you're at your lowest (or what at the time feels to be your lowest) point. She went in for a job interview, and when they asked her what she really wanted to do, she talked about doing manga. They encouraged her to give it a try. As she was leaving, one of the interviewers ran to the door and said, "Hey! Good luck with manga!" with a smile and a fist pump. I can absolutely understand why something like that was so impactful.

Two or three years ago, I was in a Starbucks close to where I live meeting up with someone, and a couple of his associates just happened to stop by at the same time. We all got to talking; I revealed that I write—dabble really. The older gentleman associate asked if I had anything he could read, and I ended up pulling up something I had on my phone. Before these situations happen, I usually tell myself to bail out of those things and to talk myself out of it and not show anyone anything. Except, of course, my brain absolutely didn't do that and I showed him anyway. When he finished reading the entire draft, he looked at me and said that my writing was "exquisite". I can't remember the first or last time I ever heard something like that, especially with any sort of reverence, and I genuinely almost started crying. Even now, I still think of him and hope that he's doing well...

Through the first manga, you can easily come to understand that Nagata is an incredibly emotional person who doesn't always deal with things well. However, coming off the back of a life of self-harm and eating disorders, you can also understand how difficult "simple things" would be. It's easy to lecture in your mind the "do"s and "don't"s and say what you would and wouldn't do, but when your life has been a series of blaring "DON'T" alarms, you forget how to properly "do" anything, really.

My Solo Exchange Diary (1) kicks off a number of letters that Nagata would begin to write herself. Coming off the back of her success with MLEwL (I'm so sorry for that abbreviation), she reveals how her struggles have deepened in some ways. Her need for independence has gone into a fever pitch as has her loneliness. She contends with the realities of adulthood (living alone, pursuing work, managing relationships, the whole nine) while also fumbling through understanding herself and her own needs. On one hand (and she comes to realise this at a later point), she's incredibly childish and spoiled, almost. But on the other, yeah. I get it. There are a lot of points where adulthood and just living, trying to forge a path you want, especially when no one else supports you, is unbearably hard. You just want to give up in as permanent a way as possible or at least bury yourself under eighteen inches of blankets and forget it all.

When her dad says something that sends her into a quiet freakout (Dad: You're giving me a real case of depression here.), I felt that. You get so used to bubbling up and over, just trying to make it by, and then someone who you look up to/rely on/love/care about/etc. says something like... that when they have no real concept or understanding of that thing they're weaponising... It hurts. It makes you overflow when you didn't think you had anymore emotion to spill. The back and forth struggling of telling yourself to set out on your own path only to fail/relapse back into being in someone else's care—hoo, boy! Yeah, I get it big time. There are a tonne of other themes here that I can only understand from an outside perspective or as a concept, but as a broad stroke, My Solo Exchange Diary (1) helps get into the mind of Nagata as a whole. It's chaotic; it's needy; it's unapologetic (then apologetic, then unapologetic all over again); and it's constantly at war with itself. The latter point doesn't really go away as a whole, but it does evolve! There's progress in her personal story.

My Solo Exchange Diary (2) has me feeling like I'm with her at this point. I actually pre-ordered this one waiting for its release, and so I was really glad to have it going into the pandemic. Here, Nagata tries to connect more with friends, struggles with depression and creativity, and starts to understand what her relationship is with her family. I'll admit, at the time, her evolution with her family in a more positive light felt like an accomplishment to see. I'm usually a "don't just burn the bridge down, set the whole village on fire" sort of person with a particularly vindictive penchant towards family, but I was genuinely happy to see her gain a more mature understanding of her family, their wants and needs, and their perspectives.

This understanding and her warm interactions with friends does come at its own cost though. No step forward with Nagata, it seems, can come without something else spiraling out of control. And I mean... that's sort of the crux of life when you struggle with deep depression. You fixate so tightly on one aspect of your life that it becomes your entire center, but there are other things that have decayed in the meanwhile because they haven't had your proper attention. It's not so much that "Things are always going wrong!", it's more a sad and upfront case of life moving forward even while you fall apart. And life requires so much juggling as it is, even the mentally sound fall apart. So when you're battling yourself as well as well as any and all perceived battles you're going through, there are other things that need as much maintenance and attention just going downhill while your back is turned. 

Things do degrade to a point where she has to be hospitalised. It's a voluntary hopsitalisation, so it's not such a dire case that she has to be put there by external forces. But her mother was concerned enough to call her doctor who suggested she go. And to me, I see another point of personal growth in Nagata that she does go. Even when she does feel deep sadness in being there, she does give it a few tries of her own volition. I'm actually very happy her parents (especially her dad, what) ended up being there for her and were supportive during her time there. She has a good doctor and the nurses who speak with her warmly (which is so out of my realm of understanding as an American).

As the cover would suggest and what's sprinkled throughout this volume is how she starts to cope with her sadness with drinking. While I know drinking in Japan isn't really seen as much of anything in most aspects, drinking to cope is still a recipe for disaster. Towards the end of MSED1, I did feel a sense of dread when I saw how much her drinking had gone up (from 500mL to 2.7L!). This volume only deepened that worry. One that was doubly confirmed by her next work, which I pre-ordered as soon as I could. The highlight though, that did fill me with some pride, was that we got to see her fictional oneshot that left a pretty solid impression on me. (I'm rooting for you, Chika-chan!)

At the time of writing, this is the most recent release by Nagata. My Alcoholic Escape From Reality is exactly what you think it is. So lost in her despair, Nagata completely gives into her vice of drinking, and that ends up having a pretty severe consequence. We open up on her hospitalisation where she's diagnosed with pancreatitis. (It started as acute, but from what I'm understanding, it developed into chronic. Let me know if I'm wrong!) 

I have the least to say about this one. Not because it's not any good; they're all fantastic in their own ways, but this really is just her recounting her health struggle as well as her back and forth relationship with alcohol. But, interestingly, this also does talk about her attempt to break away from diary manga as a whole and to focus on fiction works only. She doesn't want to bring anymore pain or disgrace to her family, so she tried to push in a different direction creatively. By now, she's in her thirties and is still feeling like she's trying to plot the course of her life. And I get it! I super get that now more than ever.

There have been too many times where I sat slumped in my own skin thinking that I was going nowhere, feeling like I was achieving nothing, and that I was going to die miserably doing whatever it was I was doing. Right now, I don't feel that biting sting of wanting to die as much, but being in that same age range, for once I'm looking at my future with open and empty hands wondering what I should do. I often feel like my younger self would be pretty disappointed, if not outright ashamed, of how long it took me to achieve certain things and downright confused about how I never managed to achieve others. 

Her mother and doctor at the mental clinic help put Nagata in a better mindset about her permanent physical lifetstyle change, but it takes a few breakthroughs for her to understand her place as a memoir artist. Reading Disabled with no Physical Disabilities by Sasaki Nonoka, having the words and understanding of fellow mangaka Uzuki Taeko, and emotionally blurting out her own true feelings help Nagata understand the purpose and theme of her work: love and loneliness. It's something that can see obvious to us as readers, especially from the very first manga, but having that sort of self-awareness doesn't always come easily.

Something I've known for years is that I don't do well with interpersonal connections, but this year, the realisation of "I don't understand human experiences at all" hit me with full force, going down to a level of clarity I don't think I have the ability to articulate. There's a disconnect and a dissonance that comes with allowing yourself to just feel that seems... odd to me. I've known that I've never been a social type, but the entire concept was set before me on stage one day, and I realised just how little I fully understood (or even cared for) the song and dance. 

... It's probably what led me to quitting my job, honestly, hahaha.

MAEFR does end on a far more positive note than her other diary manga do, and I'm genuinely looking forward to her next work, My Wandering Warrior Existence. According to the official blurb, this will go through Nagata's "exploration of longing for love and marriage." I'm excited in a worried-sick kind of way.

I've become invested in Nagata in a way that, thankfully, hasn't gone parasocial. It takes a lot of guts to be able to put even a fragment of your life out there like this. I'm all too familiar with yelling into an internet void, but there's a special level of deliberation that comes with what Nagata Kabi does that I just... absolutely could never do. There's so much more that's incredibly difficult to cover. There are things that caught my interest (such as her saying how she doesn't feel like a woman/feels dread at being identified as one); there are mixed highlights in her personal life (dating!); the perhaps incredibly odd dependency she feels towards her mother early on (though it does make more sense in some ways when you see it explained) and just— You would really have to read it to get the full experience.

I'm by no means saying that this is an easy read, but I do say that it's best to approach this with an open mind. You will come across some difficult to swallow things, but you do have to engage with this series on its own terms. And remember that you always have a choice to just step away if it's not something you jive with personally. 

As for me, I can't wait to see the next part of Nagata's journey and whatever heartbreak and/or triumph that may bring.

Please check out Nagata Kabi's Pixiv and twitter (Japanese only, both). Her next work My Wandering Warrior Existence is being printed by Seven Seas Entertainment, and you can find different links to pre-order it here.

 

Hey, Nagata Kabi. 

This is... not... Nagata Kabi. 

In fact, I'm only someone on the far opposite side of the world who's only come to know you in some sense over the past few years. Thank you for all of your hard work; you've really been struggling, haven't you. I understand that things can get really difficult, trying to chase some internal spotlight, trying to have yourself been seen even if you don't really know what "you" will be exposed in the end. Learning how to love and how to accept that love in return seems like an exceptionally tough trial for you. I hope that you can come to understand that in the end.

Your works have helped these past two years; it's made me more reflective, and it's definitely had me rooting for you more often than not whenever you crossed my mind. Sometimes, we do and say things that make us insufferable. We break down and lash out and fall down to our most basic pieces when we don't know what else to do. It's really difficult to look at people who can get up and face the world with a smile on their faces, but don't give up hope. One day, though maybe not every day, that can be you too. It's a challenge to get to that point and maintain it, but these days, even being able to do it at all is its own reward.

Life has been really scary, but let me thank you again for showing us how scared you've really been. I may not understand desiring familial approach, but I understand the hunger and the chase for satisfaction. Sometimes it leaves me starved to the point of madness. But I'm still here—we're both still here. Even though a lot of these things have happened to you years ago by this point, I hope that you can look back at all of these experiences and learn something new.

You've still got that chance. Looking back can sometimes teach you how to move forward, but don't spend too much time looking over your shoulder. You've made progress. Even small steps can feel like leaps and bounds when you've been at the bottom for so long. In 2022, I'll get to learn a little bit more. But tell me:

How are you doing now?

— NIL.