Sahara. Volume 4 Cover Art Cropped, A Tail’s Tale, Tokyopop.
A Tail’s Tale – Information
Author of Story: Mizu Sahara
Chapter Count: 4 volumes, 24 chapters
Status: Completed
Content Warnings
These content warnings do not reflect the contents of the review below, only the literary work itself.
- Bullying
- Emotional trauma
- Physical assault
- Brief nudity, partial nudity
- Discrimination
- Explicit imagery of SH
- Topics of SI
- Sensitive topics
Spoiler Disclaimer
This recommendation post may contain small plot spoilers for review purposes. Any major spoilers are hidden by default and are able to be revealed via click or tap.
A Tail’s Tale – Plot Summary
A Tail’s Tale is a beautiful, tear-worthy coming of age story about self discovery, acceptance, and understanding. It beautifully captures the ups and downs of life, and turned out to be a much more meaningful story that I expected at first impression!
This bittersweet and delightfully strange manga follows a middle school girl by the name of Hiyama Yamanachi (often called Nachi).
Nachi struggles to fit in with her fellow softball team members, who all seem to tan easily. Despite spending many hours in the sun, Nachi doesn’t look anything like her teammates.
As she struggles to fit in and be confident in her own skin, she meets a boy named Kaisei Utsumi. Very soon by coincidence, Nachi discovers that Utsumi has his own secret insecurity: he was born with a tail! After this discovery, the story follows the two as they develop a friendship, endure hardships, and simply experience life.
A Tail’s Tale wonderfully captures the struggle to both be accepted by others and to accept others who may seem different from you—and why it is important to do so.
This still very relevant message is wrapped up in a romantic story that follows Nachi and Utsumi as they grow older, learn to love themselves, and find meaning in life.
Why You Should Read A Tail’s Tale
Plot:
If you like mangas that aren’t afraid to tackle tough topics, you may really like A Tail’s Tale. It’s a series that accurately depicts the struggles of growing up, creating relationships with others, and dealing with, well, human nature.
I often found myself tearing up from seeing the hardships the characters faced, especially knowing that many others in real life experience similar feelings.
A Tail’s Tale portrays how judgement from others and isolation due to even the smallest of differences can really impact a person’s life, while also capturing meaningful relationships and different types of love that all make living feel worth it.
It also ties in a lot of familial topics into these aspects, which I wasn’t really expecting based on the original premise. However, I found these tie-ins to be very wholesome and sweet, so I enjoyed them overall!
Although the characters start out in middle school, they grow up a lot during this 4-volume series. We see them from middle school all the way into adulthood through time skips that take place with each volume for the most part (the high school arc lasts a bit longer than the others).
I really like manga that follow the characters in this way. It sort of takes the focus off the characters themselves and puts it more on their life experiences and the main message. It’s a refreshing format to read now and then.
Due to this format, the romance is not necessarily front and center, nor is it explored too deeply. It does play a major role and is present from beginning to end, but the story doesn’t focus on their romantic interactions too often.
I feel like a lighter focus on the romance was appropriate for this series, given that the point of the story wasn’t necessarily the romance itself. It is very cute, though!
Overall, I think A Tail’s Tale could be a great fit for readers who enjoy lighter romance elements and prefer to have a significant or meaningful plot along the way, too.
Sahara. Volume 1 Cover Art, A Tail’s Tale, Tokyopop.
In addition to a light and cute romance, this manga handles more sensitive topics and themes very well, often tying in a variety of important points—motherhood, bullying, multicultural families, and so on—which are lightly disguised through metaphors and unique storytelling.
Speaking of unique storytelling, I want to mention that this series has a charm and sort of strange sense of humor that is sprinkled within. It utilizes slightly bizarre characteristics such as the whole pig tail thing; and more that I won’t spoil.
I know they are metaphorical, but these elements really stand out amongst the more serious topics and wholesome messaging, haha!
Characters:
I really liked the way the characters are written in this manga series. Although the story doesn’t dive too deeply into them, they feel pretty real and not overly exaggerated.
Sometimes certain characters in A Tail’s Tale can feel a little frustrating, but their personalities and reactions were believable, whether they were morally correct or not.
Lots of characters play important roles in this manga, but for the sake of this review I’ll focus on the main two.
Starting with the male lead, Utsumi is a cute but rather unfortunate character, particularly at the beginning. I don’t have much to say about him that doesn’t dip into spoiler territory, so I’ll hide my thoughts below behind a click/tap just in case…
It is obvious to see that Utsumi is a kind boy who struggles to find his normal. He and his family have moved from place to place for his sake—and it has taken a toll on him. He loves his family, but clearly wishes he could lead a more normal non-tail-related life.
While seeming to have some resentment towards his family, he also cares for them enough to pack down his own feelings and needs for their sake. He does this with Nachi, too—hindering his own happiness in the process. He’s such a pitiable character, but I was happy to see him have some growth.
Next we have the FL! Again, not much to say here, as the message is straightforward and the character building isn’t super deep.
We first see Nachi concerned with being judged by others and not fitting in with the rest of her schoolmates. An understandable worry for a middle schooler. However, she soon gains a new point of view when she meets Utsumi.
By meeting Utsumi, she begins to learn that being different is not something to be ashamed of, nor should it be something to shun others for. Due to her feelings towards Utstumi, Nachi does have some unique obstacles to overcome throughout her life—but never seems to waver in being herself.
That’s part of what makes her character great. She learns quickly, and this allows her to overcome her struggles while also supporting her new friend.
As I mentioned before, the characters are not explored too deeply, but the story still comes across well. I think Utsumi had the most significant characterizations and growth, so I’ll talk about him a little more in the in-depth section later.
Art:
I really enjoyed the art style of A Tail’s Tale. The style is engaging and interesting, but still leaves a lot of room for the dialogue to do some heavy lifting.
While reading this series, I never felt as though the art was lacking. The style felt well-detailed and unique enough to stand out a bit—glad to see a relatively modern manga that isn’t too sleek or strictly following trends!
Sahara. Volume 2 Cover Art, A Tail’s Tale, Tokyopop.
Each character has such a different design, never looking too similar to the next person. I liked this aspect of the manga; the characters all have their own uniqueness, but not to the extreme that manga and anime often like to take. They all look normal and human.
I particularly enjoyed Utsumi’s look. Something about his messy hair and expressions just really fit his “teenager going through heavy emotions” vibe.
He doesn’t look too moody at all times though, which was a pleasantly realistic surprise. I’m very glad he wasn’t made to act entirely like a moody recluse!
Any Cons?
I only have two cons for this series…
If you’ve read a lot of my reviews, you may know that I don’t think romance is the only way for a person to find happiness. And I have to admit, this manga almost makes the main characters hopeless without their love for each other.
Although the two do find a stronger sense of belonging in their romantic relationship, I appreciate that the story at least includes other forms of love and support via friendship and family.
On a less serious note, I simply don’t like amnesia arcs, and the one included in this series felt too goofy and too sudden for the storyline, in my opinion.
More In-Depth Review (Warning: Spoilers!)
As I mentioned before, I wanted to dive into Utsumi’s character a bit more here, because he is probably the best written character in this series. He’s the most human of them all.
He struggles at the beginning to accept Nachi’s affections, as he was used to being judged, mistreated, and isolated—and didn’t want her to experience all that, too.
Despite not opening himself up to others due to this trauma of his, Utsumi seemed incredibly lonely and desperate for someone to accept him. I loved his character arc and seeing him grow into an adult that was ready to face himself and others bravely.
Although I had more to say about Utsumi, this manga really portrays both sides of the overall message very well.
Nachi’s role, as someone who originally misjudged Utsumi, sort of emphasized how wild it is to judge people over such a small difference, whereas Utsumi’s side of the story shows just how impactful that judgement can be to someone’s mental health and confidence.
Although both of the main two characters struggle with finding their confidence and accepting themselves, they eventually find their own way towards happiness throughout life—whether it be romantic relationships, friendships, or familial love.
Eventually, we get to see what they’ve learned be passed down to their daughter. After being showered by all kinds of love, she is confident enough to share her unique, authentic self with others at a young age. It was such a heartwarming way to end the story!
Final Thoughts
Readers looking for a unique, short, and meaningful story will enjoy A Tail’s Tale. It has a light romance that helps push the main plot, and a wholesome message that is portrayed through a mix of both heartwarming and unfortunate life experiences.
After dragging us through feelings of anticipation, worry, suspense, and more, this manga series leaves us with a pretty satisfactory ending. It’s a well-written story, neatly compiled into only four volumes.
Happy reading! (๑❛ᴗ❛๑)
Disclaimer: Many images used for this blog are for illustrative purposes only, are not owned by me, and are under ownership of the artist or publisher.
Images Credit: Sahara, Mizu. A Tail’s Tale, Tokyopop, 2018.
