The Spring 2022 Manga Guide

Links

What's It About? 

Links has story and art by Natsuki Kizu and English translation by Adrienne Beck. SuBLime Manga released this collection both digitally and physically for $6.99 and $12.99 respectively.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

If you've read (or watched) Given, you already know that Natsuki Kizu is a champion at intertwining melancholy plot threads with the rest of her BL stories. Links, the book she wrote before Given, leans into that even more than her band story as it weaves the tale of four couples all linked to each other in some way. At least two of the couples are directly tied to one particular death that occurred before the story began, and we can almost see that as the prototype for Given in the way that it's used to inform the characters' relationships. Even if you don't love sad stories (and I admit that's never my first choice, though if we're being honest, I read pretty much anything) the way this death is used is absolutely the strongest piece of the book, bookending the main timeline in a way that's beautifully bittersweet and a little bit haunting.

The main story follows four couples who are tied together in a variety of ways. They're linked by a café where many of them work or visit, a yakuza family, a fatal accident, and the music of both voice and piano. The idea of something heard is a fairly major theme, both in terms of the dead character, who played the piano, and one of the living, who is a radio DJ with his own show. It's his voice that initially attracts the man he begins to date, while the piano playing of the dead has a hold on several other characters' ears and hearts, implying that sound is an intrinsically romantic element. The idea of looking out for each other is another major theme in across the stories, with bodyguards fulfilling the role in a grounded sense and the regret of not having realized that someone was looking out for you until it's too late carrying across several stories as well. In the most interesting use of the theme, one of the couples gets together when one of the guys and a stray cat are picked up on the street by his future boyfriend.

The biggest issue with this book is that it can be very hard to tell the characters apart. All of them have the same basic build and similar hairstyles, and a couple also have little beards, so really only the one with a tattoo is distinct enough to immediately identify without thinking about it. The text also switches between first and last names, which wouldn't be a problem if it was easier to tell who everyone is. But even with this annoyance, Links is a lovely book about the power of human connection and all the ways that it can manifest in a couple. If you liked Given, definitely give this a chance.