While reading Kiriko Nananan’s essays, I came across the name Keiichi Sokabe. Flipping through a special edition of *Eureka* dedicated to Nananan, I found her writing about Sokabe’s song "May" (5-gatsu). I thought to myself: *Ah, so this is where they connect.* It wasn’t a grand discovery, but rather the quiet feeling of finding a lost key in the pocket of an old coat. Manga and song, line and voice, kitchen and guitar, cigarette smoke and May air. Sometimes we realize only much later that things existing in entirely separate places actually shared the exact same humidity.

As she listens to Sokabe’s "May," Nananan reminisces about a night from her past. A tavern in Shimokitazawa, the counter of a restaurant serving delicious fish, friends, a second bar, the songs playing in the background. And someone crying. Yet, the reason for those tears remains obscure. Were they sad, lonely, simply drunk, remembering something, or was there no real reason at all? The text makes no attempt to explain the cause. That is precisely what makes it beautiful.

In life, there are scenes that remain with us without any explanation. Someone is crying, and you are simply watching. You are not close enough to offer comfort, yet not distant enough to remain uninvolved. The mere fact of having been there lingers strangely in the body. What we recall later is rarely the content of the conversation. Instead, it is the cans left on the table, the lighting of the shop, the profile of the person next to us, the music playing, the air on the walk home. It is always these details that return to memory.

Sokabe’s songs inhabit this kind of time. Rather than offering strong explanations, they preserve the moments that exist before explanation takes hold. In the songs of Sunny Day Service, as well as in Sokabe’s solo work, totally ordinary elements appear: streets, rooms, afternoons, nights, lovers, friends, seasons, stations, light, wind. Yet, these are not mere descriptions of daily life. It is the feeling of the everyday just before it hardens into a memory—the sense that nothing has ended yet, though in truth, the end has already begun. A feeling that eludes us while we are there, only for us to look back later and realize: *that was a scene from my life.*

This quality is also present in Kiriko Nananan’s manga. In *blue* as in *Pumpkin and Mayonnaise*, before characters speak in grand words, they simply exist in a room. They smoke, prepare meals, talk to partners, fall silent, weep, leave, and do not return. Events occur, but they are not depicted as dramatic events. Instead, her work captures the turbidity of life before it crystallizes into a plot. Do they love each other, or do they not? Is it over, or is it still continuing? Is everything fine, or is it already falling apart? Nananan's lines accept this ambiguous time as it is. Thus, it feels entirely natural that she would recall Sokabe’s "May." Both creators treat life not as a series of definitive moments, but as fragments whose meaning can only be understood long afterward.

And perhaps that is where the season of "May" resides. May is a strange month. It feels like spring, yet spring is already gone. It stands at the threshold of summer, but summer has not yet arrived. A new life has only just begun, yet a slight weariness begins to set in. It is bright, yet somehow precarious. It lacks the stark beginning of April, nor is it as damp as June. May is perhaps the month when, after something has begun, we start to doubt—if only slightly—whether that beginning was truly ours to claim. This is why the song "May" is neither purely bright nor simply nostalgic. Inside it, there lies a reasonless loneliness.

The night in Nananan's essay is the same. No grand event occurred. There was simply a bar, people, music playing, and someone crying. Yet, for some reason, these are the nights that linger longest. Memory does not preserve things in order of importance. Rather than structured, named events like graduations, weddings, or entrance ceremonies, it is often a person's expression on an unremarkable night that remains. Why did they look that way then? Why could I say nothing? Why do I remember only that song? There are no answers. Yet, it is precisely because there are no answers that they become songs, manga, and essays. Things that can be explained perhaps do not need to be written. Only the inexplicable returns to us again and again.

Kiriko Nananan’s manga depicts the inexplicable without explaining it. Keiichi Sokabe’s songs sing of the inexplicable without explaining it. Thus, the connection between the two feels less like a coincidence and more like two people who were always looking at the same place, recording it in their own distinct ways. It is a record of youth—though not a pristine youth, but something far more cluttered. Cans in the kitchen, laundry in the room, an empty wallet. A relationship going poorly, a friend crying. The blinding talent of others, while you are still nobody. Even so, the night continues. You leave the bar, head to a second place. Music plays, and morning arrives. People existed within that time. Looking back now, it is a time to which we can never return. Yet because we cannot return, the songs and the manga remain.

Reading Nananan's words made me realize that Sokabe's "May" is not merely a song, but a format for preserving memory. There are things photos cannot capture, things diaries do not record, and things that cannot be reconstructed through conversation. Yet, when a certain song plays, the very air of that space returns. It does not return completely; rather, we are made painfully aware that it cannot return. Even so, for a brief moment, the contour of that night emerges. Who was there, what was said, why they were crying. While the details remain blurred, the emotions that drifted through the space return with strange accuracy. Perhaps that is what music is—not something that preserves memory correctly, but something that forgives the ways we remember incorrectly.

Kiriko Nananan’s manga operates in much the same way. It is not an accurate record of a life. Feelings left unvoiced, conversations cut short, words kept inside, tears without a reason. It preserves these things in their imperfect state. That is why people reread these books and relisten to these songs years later, wondering: *What was I doing back then? Where are they now? What was that night all about?* We will likely never find the answers. But then, life is mostly made of questions with no answers.

May offers no explanations. Neither Kiriko Nananan nor Keiichi Sokabe offers explanations. They simply, gently preserve the fact that people were there, a night existed, music played, and someone cried. Years later, we encounter these fragments once again. We realize, *Ah, so this is where they connect.* On a bookshelf, on a page, inside a song. In the quiet afternoon, just on the cusp of May.

© SHIRO & Co.

First published: 2026-06-09