With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child

This is my first time rating a manga so I apologize if there are any mistakes. I give this manga...a perfect, pure, concentrated 100/100! Yep! You read that rating right! I feel this is the single greatest and best manga of all time!...yet it's so underrated and underappreciated! But the appreciators who DO love it are truly devoted to this beautiful and majestic manga! I honestly feel that this is one of the most ground-breaking and wonderful and incomparable manga ever created! This is my number one all time favorite manga. And I can give A TON of reasons for it being sooooo wonderful! The premise of thismanga is actually very surprising and unusual, and not many other manga have done this before! The manga's about a young mother who discovers her beloved son, Hikaru, has autism, a developmental disorder of the brain that affects communication and social interaction. The Azuma family go through both hardship and joy as they go on a journey to help their son live to be a "cheerful, working adult" when he gets older. I'm autistic myself, so I relate to this manga on an extremely personal level. In fact, I didn't even know this manga even existed until 2008, when I accidentally came across a Wikipedia article about it! I was so surprised and overjoyed that I literally begged my dad to order the first two volumes (volumes 3 and up weren't out back then) off of Amazon! And boy, am I glad I did! This manga has won a very very VERY special place in my heart. Even the awesomeness that is Shounen Onmyouji (my number one favorite anime of all time) couldn't compare to this manga's beauty and divinity! And boy do I have a TON of praises for this beautiful, sublime, and wonderful manga! Let me start with the story first. Autism is a very controversial yet well known subject nowadays, yet this manga wasn't published until the late 90s, and autism wasn't all that well known in Japan just yet. Heck, NO manga before that time has ever even DARED to tackle the issue that is autism! But in this manga, it's done absolutely wonderfully! The plot is adorably consistent, the portrayal of autistic children (and adults) are absolutely spot-on, and the development is fantastic! Of course, the manga, while having an optmistic and warm and kind-hearted message behind it, refuses to shy away from discrimination and social prejudice toward the autistic. Thankfully, there's no insane melodrama or unnecessary angst or complicated matters or anything of the like. In fact, if you ever have an autistic relative or are autistic yourself, you can actually relate to these problems and issues! And the characters! My goodness, the characters are absolutely and positively wonderful! Sachiko, the mother in this series, is a wonderful and strong character who is able to carry the weight of this manga perfectly. She's a wonderful depiction of a mother trying to raise an autistic child. Of course in the beginning she's in denial and feels alone and abandoned regarding her son, and on one occasion she even takes her anger out on Hikaru, but she grows and develops and learns and accepts whatever she's been given. Her husband, Masato, is also great too! At first he may seem like the stereotype of a cold and uncaring parent, but that's simply not true. In the beginning, he's simply too young and inexperienced to be the star husband and employee that his family, and society, want him to be. And like Sachiko, he grows and learns and accepts what he's given and doesn't look back. I love that in a character! Hikaru...awwww, what can I say about him!? He's soooo adorable and a wonderful portrayal of an autistic child, though I will confess that I haven't met any children like him in my country (America). But I can easily see a character like him in real life! And the minor characters. The family and friends are also wonderfully depicted and developed. Even the very minor characters who only appear for one chapter or more are given a little impact and personality! There's always something about them all that leaves an impression. How can you go wrong with that!? The artwork...of course it looks rather old school shoujo manga-esque with round, sparkly eyes and all that. Thankfully, the artwork never loses it's edge. In fact, even with its simplicity, it really makes everything feel real and soft and warm-feeling, like you're actually seeing the characters and actually playing the events of the manga in your head! No page feels overly extravagant or overly bland. The artwork is nice and well-balanced. Plus, it really captures the emotions the characters feel and the events going on in each chapter fantastically! Wonderful! Sublime! Nothing is wasted and nothing is overly used. In general...I can only label this manga as sublime and wonderful. One of the best ever. An amazing and beautiful and authentic portrayal of a family raising an autistic child! And I NEVER say these words for anything unless I'm really pulled in by it! Of course, the manga doesn't ENTIRELY focus on JUST the family and their autistic child. In fact, the manga also tries to develop the characters around them and give them some depth and development and impact on the story from other families with autistic children to the children Hikaru befriended (albeit impassively) and even the relatively minor characters! Even so, this is a wonderful manga that truly deserves more attention in this world. One thing I was terribly upset about was when the author of this manga, Tobe Keiko, died abruptly in January of 2010. You couldn't believe how upset I was. I even thought it was a joke until I started losing it. I cried so much I even woke my parents up at 6:00 in the morning, I was THAT heartbroken! And the manga isn't even finished yet! Well, I guess it is now considering Yen Press is releasing the posthumous final volume of this manga later this year. Waaaahhh!! Why did she have to die!? She still has so much to give to the world! But what she did give will be greatly cherished and remembered. We will always remember Keiko Tobe and the great things she achieved in life, this manga being her highest and best achievement. If there's one thing I want out of this manga, it's this: A FREAKING ANIME ADAPTATION!!! That's right! This manga would be a GREAT anime if handled by the right staff and production company! We need more realistic anime like this nowadays! We're tired of being bombared by big-boobed, underwear flashing, overblown moe and incest and ecchi moe garbage!!! So many awesome manga like this are left in the dark while stupider titles get adapted! Well, all's not lost. There's apparently a 13-episode live-action TV drama of it. I only saw the first episode, but I plan on watching the rest of it this year. All in all, this is a sublime and divine manga! The best ever! GO READ IT NOW!!!

This is a fantastic slice-of-life manga following two parents as they raise an autistic child. As the couple learn more about autism and about their child, they grow as parents and learn how to nurture their son and develop an environment he can thrive in. Story: 9/10 The premise is a simple one, and it’s right in the title: this manga is about raising an autistic child. We follow Sachiko and Masato as they learn how to become better parents to their son, Hikaru. They struggle to reconcile their fantasies of parenthood with the realities. They realize that their primary goal as parents shouldn’t necessarilybe to raise a doctor or lawyer, but instead to raise a happy and healthy young man. They discover that, with patience and love, Hikaru is capable of many great things—but they also come to understand that, even if he isn’t able to do everything that society seems important, he is still their wonderful son. The manga doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulties that the parents, and Hikaru, go through. Hikaru is often overstimulated and has meltdowns—early on, the parents, unaware of his feelings, cause them or make them worse. He struggles to communicate, and this frustrates both him and his parents. When Hikaru is young, his parents often express regret that he was born or have the urge to disengage with him. It’s difficult to read something like this, but the parents do grow and change, becoming much more compassionate and caring people, who are dedicated to giving their son the opportunities he needs to thrive. The first chapters, especially, can be challenging to get through, but as the parents learn more and become more involved with Hikaru, we get to watch as they guide Hikaru’s growth into a young man. As life goes on—Kanon, the couples’ daughter, is born, schools change, and new families are introduced—we watch along with his parents as Hikaru grows up. It’s such a shame that the author died before finishing the series, because I genuinely wanted to see what would happen to the characters next. Art: 10/10 The art is lovely. It’s consistently well-drawn and look beautiful. Hikaru (and, later, Kanon) slowly grow up before the reader’s eyes, and it’s fantastic to see. Character: 9/10 I genuinely disliked—at times, even hated—Sachiko and Masato, but over time, I came to like them as characters. At the start of the series, Sachiko is an overwhelmed young mother with little patience for and almost no understanding of Hikaru and his needs. Masato is cold and avoids his family in whatever ways he can, and seems to have no interest in his son, nor the desire to develop one. Pretty early on in the series, though, they start to develop into more patient and caring people, and continue to improve as parents throughout. Even though he is nonverbal, Hikaru’s personality and interests are apparent, and though Kanon is young, her personality develops through the series as well. The characters grow in a very believable, realistic way. It is a pleasure to see their progress unfold. Enjoyment: 10/10 This manga can be hard to read at times, particularly at the start. The parents behave in ways that are sometimes appalling, but they grow over time into supportive and nurturing parents. Watching each character mature is incredibly enjoyable. The pacing is excellent. We get to see each stage of Hikaru’s life as he ages, and the author never lingers on one age for too long. I do want to mention that, as an educational tool, it’s not perfect—but I also don’t think this was the author’s intention. The manga doesn’t perfectly explore the complexities of the autism spectrum or portray all points on that spectrum, nor does it go into the ethics of different therapies or coping skills, or their effectiveness. It shows its age when certain terms are used. It can be educational in some ways, but it certainly can’t replace educational texts or the knowledge you gain from talking to actual autistic people about their lives. But, this manga isn’t supposed to be the end-all, be-all guide to autism. It’s a story of Hikaru and his parents, and it’s a very good one. Overall: 9/10 This is a great slice-of-life manga that I would recommend to any fan of the genre. It’s a mature, well-done series with excellent character development and writing. While it can get dark, it is ultimately hopeful. If it had been completed, it would most likely have been a masterpiece.

As many readers of my reviews may note, I typically don’t tackle manga titles since anime is more my main priority of covering. But upon learning the premise of With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child almost three years ago, it caught my interest for both personal reasons and seeing how mangaka Keiko Tobe would approach exploring autism as to my knowledge, the disability has not had a serious exploration within any Japanese anime or manga series. The manga focuses on the challenges faced by the Azuma family as they try raising their autistic son, Hikaru, as With the Light explores his life from birthup to junior high school. To go into the personal reasons that With the Light caught my interest, I shall confess that I am on the autistic spectrum in the same vain that the manga’s lead, Hikaru, is. Growing up had its highs and lows for me with autism. I had a delay in being capable of talking compared to other toddlers growing up and even through school, had to take speech therapy classes due to my struggles with properly pronouncing and expressing words. I was placed in other special education programs such as occupational therapy and a Resource Room to have adequate support in handling school life with my disability. I also struggled often with understanding proper social behavior and interactions with others as I got into enough misunderstandings growing up that led me to being bullied and teased by other kids my age. The struggles I had in school on many occasions caused enough stress for my parents. In spite of these issues, I still benefited from having a strong desire to learn, engage myself in whatever interests I took up, and being the first within my family to graduate from college. Reading through With the Light and relating it to my experiences growing up, the manga does very well at believably exploring the challenges an autistic child can deal with. The desire for repetitive routines and differences in processing information are typical traits for those on the autistic spectrum, and the social challenges that come with it also get explored when Hikaru’s behavior causes enough stresses for his family and friends due to the misunderstandings and inconveniences it can cause. The toll this can take on Hikaru’s family and friends does get focused on as well with Hikaru’s family gradually learning how to work around their son’s disability and dealing with the ignorance that others have with understanding it. Outside of its believable exploration of autism, With the Light also features an interesting exploration of how the Japanese perceive and take care of those on the autistic spectrum. While many Americans have gradually come to better understand and provide support to autistics in spite of lingering issues that still need addressing, the situation for autistics in Japan is much worst. Many schools are underequipped to handle caring for students having a mental disability and many teachers lack training in teaching styles that can work around the cognitive issues faced by said students. Also, the Japanese translation of the word meaning “self-closure syndrome” creates a stereotype to many in assuming that the blame for the person’s actions is either their own or the parents instead of genetic inheritance being a factor. This is actually truth in real life as Japan faces struggles with valuing individual worth due to its “group over individual” cultural mentality and the country’s mental health services are underfunded and understaffed, with many staff members lacking adequate training to provide sufficient services to varying mental disorders. Outside of exploring the everyday lives experienced by Hikaru and his family, the series also devotes time to exploring issues that affect friends and acquaintances known to Hikaru and his family. Issues such as family abuse, neglect, and institutional corruption are touched upon with exploring supporting characters and Hikaru’s family often find themselves caught up in handling or learning of these conflicts. One thing I should note with With the Light though is the series can get quite heavy with emphasizing its exploration of autism at points throughout its run. Melodrama is often milked to dramatize the emotions felt by its characters in handling their everyday situations, especially in cases where Hikaru’s mother, Sachiko, is trying to understand her son and be responsive to his needs. While there were points where I found this dramatization to be overdone, it still helped enhanced the manga’s major scenes that highlighted developments with Hikaru’s family and other characters learning to better understand the challenges faced by Hikaru and others dealing with various disabilities. Another issue with the series is that it does lack a proper ending as it ends inconclusively during Hikaru’s middle school years, though this can’t exactly be faulted on quality since Keiko Tobe was struggling with a serious illness that eventually took her life in 2010 and left the series in a permanent hiatus. Overall, With the Light met up to my expectations rather well in its believable exploration of the challenges faced by Hikaru’s family in raising him despite his disability and the issues that Japan as a whole has with accommodating individuals with disabilities. It can be overdramatized at points with emphasizing its themes. But this is perhaps one of the few titles you can find in Japanese media that offers a serious and believable look at the challenges of raising an autistic child.

I don't consider this just a manga. No piece of fiction has caused me to think about life as much as this story. Life's hard as it is. A collective series of choices that inevitably lead to one's death. Friends, family, children, a husband, a mother, the grandma, the grandpa. It's all a random set of circumstances in which we do what we can to be happy, but there's always a wrench thrown at most people. Some don't have the economic standing necessary to sustain a normal life, others have parental problems. Everybody's got their thing, something they've got to deal with in their ownway. This story is about a family with a son, one born with autism, but it isn't just about the tribulations of that. Life isn't just about one thing, everything stems from the fact that we're alive, and we've got a responsibility. While we mainly focus on the POV of a mother trying to raise her child, the story involves everybody around each person involved, and their struggles around the titular boy Hikaru. The characters are all rich in stories, in lessons about understanding, patience, love, the lack of love, situations in which we're thankful our main character wasn't born in. Nobody in here's perfect, not even the mother, or the father, or the son. It's a portrait of somebodies life, and it sometimes feels like voyeurism. A masterpiece in portraying a group of people, distant from me, or others. Maybe they remind you of people you know, but you'll feel a connection with their struggle. The art is rather simple for the kind of story it is. It lacks in detail, but it makes up with the amount of personality on display. It's probably more of a “gets the job done” rather than being an explosion of art. What stands out is the writing. Not many stories can keep me engaged while showing me normal life. You're always tense while reading, waiting for the good times to last, knowing hurdles are always there. I kept wondering where could it go? What more is there to explore? Only to get a curveball, a piece of dialogue. One of the most impactful moments were definitely when everything was calm, and reflective. “Will I live more than my old man?”, “I just want him to take care of himself before I'm gone”. It makes you feel the reality of being a parent, about how we look at our parents, and their aging selves. We age, everything changes, medicine changes, learning disabilities come to be understood, resources appear, and you yourself become part of the help. It's the most “life” manga out there. An unfinished masterpiece that's not about a fantastical suffering, or a tale that scales time and space. We get a family, and they don't have it easy. It keeps you engaged, hoping for the best until the ending. It didn't, but of course it wouldn't. Life moves forward, one year at a time. If I had ANY problems. Themes appear on the nose at the beginning, or characters spell out why something happened. Almost negligible compared to the rest. 9.6/10. You won't regret giving this a chance. Took me a while to finish, but it was worth it.