The Fish Bowl

one day in my teens when i was walking home from highschool i found a thoroughly beaten up manga on the sidewalk. it was the first volume of No Bra, a romantic/erotic school-life comedy about the protagonist struggling with his feelings & sexuality after his childhood friend, now a trans woman, moves in with him

i was a little young for the more intimate scenes at the time but grossly fascinated by the story nonetheless & it left a lasting influence on me. it always felt like it was touching on something deeper than what it presented at face value. it wrapped up in a short 5 volumes, & like most works of art is fading into obscurity now

i had dug around multiple times to see if the author was still around or had a presence online in the past but always looked up the english spelling of their name & never got anywhere. searching in japanese finally got me to their twitter & pixiv & gave me the opportunity to relay some of my feelings about this series & its impact to the author themself. without expecting a reply, it was cathartic just to have found & left my sentiment with them

but then they replied! within a day, i not only received this note:

but this colored illustration that i couldn't reverse-image search, leading me to wonder if they had done a brand new drawing of the characters from No Bra just for me (probably just wishful thinking!)

all in all it has just been a nice experience. i saved the note & art. i could ramble on about my memories & just how surreal things are lately but that wasn't the point of this post

i just wanted to pass it along. have a nice day