Confidential Confessions

Confidential Confessions
Original title	問題 提起 作品 集
transcription	Mondaiteiki Sakuhinshu
genre	Drama, shōjo
Manga
country	Japan
author	Reiko Momochi
publishing company	Kodansha
magazine	dessert
First publication	2000-2002
expenditure	6th
Manga
title	Confidential Confessions: Deai
Original title	で あ い
transcription	Deai
country	Japan
author	Reiko Momochi
publishing company	Kodansha
magazine	dessert
First publication	July 2003 - November 2003
expenditure	2

Confidential Confessions ( Japanese 問題 提起 作品 集 Mondaiteiki Sakuhinshu ) is a manga series from the mangaka Reiko Momochi from the years 2000 to 2002. Confidential Confessions does not have a continuous plot, but rather tells several self-contained stories. The focus is on the worries and problems of teenagers, mostly 16 year old girls. The work can be classified into the genres of drama and shōjo and continued in 2003 with the two-part Confidential Confessions: Deai .

Stories

Volume 1: The door (main story). The young student Manatsu lives with her mother, who was abandoned by her father for a younger girl, and is totally dissatisfied with her life. Her mother constantly pressures her about school, and apart from superficial acquaintances, she has no friends. Because of this, life seems increasingly pointless to her and she plays with suicidal thoughts more and more often. One day she meets "asparagus": a young, shy girl who is bullied by her classmates and who cuts herself to forget the pain. "Asparagus" and Manatsu become friends and talk about suicide, but at first they do not make any concrete plans, rather dream of being able to escape all their problems through death. After an argument with her mother, Manatsu cuts his wrists in front of her eyes. She will be saved, but now she is determined to break up for good. She is planning a double suicide together with "Asparagus".

Error (short cut). After her parents divorced, little Yoshioka grew up in poverty. She gets on the wrong track early on, steals and prostitutes herself. One day she meets the street musician Ryoichi. She steals his guitar from him and sells it. However, since Ryoichi has always been very nice to her, and still is after the theft, she shows remorse and tries to get it back. In doing so, however, she comes across an old friend who tries to persuade her to do one last coup.

Volume 2: tears . Chika Suzuki is in her school's tennis club. Although she likes tennis, she doesn't like it anymore, because her teacher Shigeru Todo touches the students immorally at every opportunity and makes obscene remarks. He disguises the touches as necessary assistance and the remarks as jokes. The situation finally escalates in the training camp. Todo bursts into the middle of the dressing room, uses the ladies' room and even lets the girls massage him, although they even have to sit on him "to exert more pressure". Chika finally reports him to the school, but under pressure from the rectorate has to withdraw the accusation and even officially apologize to Todo. He now humiliates the girl in a cruel way by letting her strip naked to prove that she does not excite him. Chika now wants to contact an advice center, but now it is her tennis colleagues who put pressure on her, fearing that the hype could have a negative effect on the upcoming tournament.

Volume 3: Rausch (main story). The student Kyo is dissatisfied with life. On the one hand, the slightly chubby girl feels way too fat, on the other hand, she is constantly put under pressure by her father, a respected teacher. So she should definitely pass the entrance exam for the renowned T-University. But her grades are only mediocre, and so she is studying almost day and night. But then she introduces her classmate Aya to a "miracle cure". Speed ​​should solve all problems. The feeling of hunger disappears and performance increases. Kyo allows himself to be persuaded, and in fact only successes emerge. Kyo is getting leaner and getting better at school. But soon the effect wears off faster and faster. While searching for new drugs, Kyo eventually stumbled upon LSD. After all, financial difficulties lead Kyo to even prostitute himself in order to be able to get the drugs. In the end, she and Aya even end up in the hands of the drug mafia who blackmail the two girls.

"Future" (short story). The young Ayumi loves the budding boxer Hiro, who is predicted to have a great future. For Hiro, she puts her own future plans (she wants to become an actress) aside. But when Hiro says one day that he is more interested in boxing than anything else, Ayumi has to decide whether she wants to go her own way or sacrifice everything for her love.

Volume 4: Pain (short cut). The two friends Megumi and Kanako work as "catch girls" because they cannot handle their pocket money. The two 16-year-old students lure well-paid men to an overpriced restaurant, where they are exempted. For this they collect 30% of the turnover. However, since Megumi does not have enough money to buy the clothes she wants, her friend persuades her to prostitute herself. Megumi is only against it, but after receiving a lot of money from her first suitor, she becomes more and more professional. In school uniform she becomes the star of the date club, but she draws the envy of her colleagues who tell her boyfriend. In addition, the boss of the club begins to cheat her out of money and drugs Kanako to make her compliant. Megumi now wants to get out of the scene, but that doesn't turn out to be that easy.

Twisted (short cut). The two friends Miho and Aiko are students at O-Mira Junior High School, where the rules are particularly strict. Among other things, conversations between boys and girls are only allowed in groups of three and at a distance of 2 meters, school uniforms are also required on public holidays, the girls' hair must be tied back or cut short and only white underwear is permitted. The tyrannical teacher Gunji monitors compliance with these rules and occasionally beats students who violate them. He is particularly interested in Miho, who defends herself against the nonsensical rules. Finally, he humiliates the girl by stripping her down to her underwear in front of the entire school. In desperation, Miho throws herself in front of a train. Since her suicide doesn't change much, Aiko decides to fight for a more humane school. However, she soon realizes that the other students are now too numb to be able to fight.

Tomorrow (short cut). The girl Ruka has been teased by the other students since she started school. However, when she accidentally brings Ako down at a sports festival, she is on the hit list of Ako and her friends. They brutally bully the girl by forcing her to eat sharpener rubbish mixed with ink, by pressing underwater while swimming until she almost suffocates or by forcing her to go through the traffic light when it is red. Her friend Nanako would like to help Ruka, but she is afraid of getting into Ako's field of fire herself.

Forbidden kisses (shortcut). Ririko has been in love with her friend Kanna since she first saw her in middle school. She develops a real obsession, but Kanna doesn't seem to notice anything about Ririko's feelings for her. When she visits Kanna surprisingly one evening, she discovers that she is having an incestuous relationship with her father. Still, she doesn't want to give up on Kanna.

Volume 5: The Secret After going to the cinema with her boyfriend Haruki, Mika goes home. Since it is only 7:00 p.m., she goes alone because her father doesn't really like her boyfriend. On the way, however, she is raped several times by a gang of young people. Her father wants to take her to the police, but Mika does not want to file a complaint because the teenagers had taken photos, and Mika threatened to publish them if she goes to the police. The deed completely changed Mika's life. Despite all attempts to lead a normal life, the past constantly catches up with them. Again and again she has to go through the act traumatically, even moving doesn't help much. But it gets bad for her when even Haruki blames her for the crime.

The wish Nana Ogata received a blood transfusion as a child after an accident. 8 years later, the now 16-year-old student always feels weak and collapses at school. It turns out that she is infected with HIV. Her boyfriend Jun and her friend Migiwa do not really know what to do now. However, Nana tries to get on with her life and even reveals her illness to the whole class. Although they are natural, Nana notices the uncertainty and fear of her classmates. Still, she is optimistic, but that optimism finally collapses when the disease breaks out.

Volume 6: The Rumor (main story). Bun and Manami have been together for 6 months. However, Bun begins to coax his girlfriend more and more. He gets jealous very quickly and when he finally hits her, Manami breaks up with him. But Bun does not accept this and begins to terrorize Manami with phone calls. When he learns that she has a new boyfriend, he finally goes nuts. He hangs around under her apartment, searches her garbage and finally even posts fake nudes of her on the Internet. Her friends advise Manami to go to the police, but Manami doesn't really dare.

"The Scream" (shortcut). Kaori is the victim of bullying by three violent schoolgirls in her class. The whole thing goes so far that she even thinks of suicide. But then a new student comes into the class who immediately becomes the new victim. Kaori now also begins to terrorize the girl and turns from the former victim to the perpetrator.

Volume 7 and 8: Contact Rika, like all teenagers, suffers from financial difficulties. Her friend Shu, on the other hand, earns her money by arranging dates on her cell phone via flirtlines and having them paid for, but these are just normal dates without sex or the like. She persuades Rika to take part. Reluctantly she gets in, but when she gets her first money, all concerns are gone. In the end, she even agrees to sell her panties to customers for money. But one day when one of these customers gets too pushy and tries to rape her, Rika is saved by the two boys Kaji & Nanase. She decides to hire the two of them as bodyguards and together with them and Shu found the "Peace" team. The two boys are supposed to protect her if a customer gets too intrusive. When the number of jobs got bigger and bigger and the two couldn't make it anymore, they finally added 6 more girls to the group. Business was good at first and the group moved their headquarters to a pub. When the money runs out, however, Kaji and Nanase decide to blackmail more and persuade Shu to take part. The group becomes more criminal, and things are slowly beginning to slip away, especially when it turns out that they owe nearly a million yen in their local pub .

The group finally manages to pay off their debts, but they are threatened by other sources. Mysterious SMS threaten revenge for everything. The girl Kimi becomes the first victim. A nude photo of her beaten up in the woods can be found on the other girls' cell phones. And that's just the beginning: Kaji is beaten up, Kei's hair is cut off, Tsucchi is pushed down the stairs, Shu is raped and Nanase is stabbed in the face with a knife. Behind it all seems to be a mysterious masked man. Finally, the girl Tama disappears and Rika receives a text message that she can save the girl if she goes to a certain place. Although she suspects that she is running into a trap, Rika sets off.

Publications

In Japan, the series was published by Kodansha in Dessert magazine . He also brought out the chapters in six volumes. The sequel Deai appeared in Dessert from July to November 2001 and then in two anthologies.

In Germany, the series was published from December 2004 to January 2006 on Tokyopop . At the end of each volume in the German edition there are web links and telephone numbers to contact points who deal with the problems dealt with in the book. In 2018 and 2019 an edition was published in four double volumes. Tokyopop also published an English translation.

reception

The manga treats important social problems of girls in Japan in the sense of an educational comic, interspersed with a few informative, forgettable stories, according to Jason Thompson. Some of the protagonists are surprisingly active by taking action against their tormentors - the drawing style of the series, on the other hand, is only average. The sequel Deai , which tells a story over two volumes for the first time in the series, is not very original, but well told and the drawings are at least very cute.

"Reiko Momochi picks up sensitive topics with great empathy," says the manga scene , "and presents them in the usual solid Shôjo aesthetic, without [...] slipping into kitsch or sentimental melodrama". The topics are not only confronted by young people in Japan, but worldwide, and the reader is offered a change from the usual action and romances. The funime describes the stories of the manga as subjectively told, but more distant than the much more personal vitamin . In Confidential Confessions , “a somewhat artificial morality is imposed”, which robs the stories of their authenticity, and the form of the short story lacks complexity and the characters lack background. At least “the short stories offer a very good basis for discussion for those interested”. The Animania praises the very professional drawings and the atmosphere are transported credible in difficult issues. The stories are "heavy fare", but also offer approaches to solving the problems.

Web links

• Entry in the Incomplete Manga Guide

• Confidential Confessions on Anime News Network (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jason Thompson: Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0345485908 , p. 57. (English)
2. ↑ Manga scene No. 17, p. 37.
3. ↑ Funime No. 41, p. 23.
4. ↑ Animania 01–02 / 2005, p. 24.