Yen Press posts details of final With The Light volume
Yen Press have updated their website with details and a cover scan of Keiko Tobe's final, posthumous volume of With the Light.
While trying to create a place in society for her autistic son, Hikaru, has been an uphill battle, Sachiko Azuma has long known that perhaps the toughest place to find acceptance for him is within her own family. Despite some progress made, Sachiko’s mother-in-law still treats her grandson as a nuisance and sees him in many ways as inferior to his little sister, Kanon. Now that the Azuma family has moved into Masato’s childhood home, Sachiko must not only adapt to life with her mother-in-law - she also must help Hikaru, whose developmental disabilities make it notoriously difficult for him to accept changes to his routine, adapt to this new living situation and a new school. As Sachiko tries to balance caring for Kanon and Hikaru in the face of her mother-in-law’s constant disapproval, will the Azuma family emerge from what seems like the darkest of tunnels into the light?
Told in completed chapters as well as unfinished pages that the creator drew while battling a long illness, this final volume of With the Light serves as a legacy to the late Keiko Tobe’s inspiring dedication to bring to light the hardships and joys of raising an autistic child for readers around the world.
It actually made me feel quite sad reading this. Considering by the fact that it says the volume contains unfinished chapters, it's presumable that these would have been written shortly before her death, which just feels really, really sad. I will definitely cry reading this volume. I originally believed that I would just cry for the series and characters, but I know for a fact that I will cry for Tobe-sensei too. She really was an incredible person, who did an amazing service for autistic people, not just in Japan, but all over the world, and she really died too young. She really will be missed.
And it really will feel terribly sad to say goodbye to all the characters we have grown to love and care about so much. It will be especially painful to say goodbye to Hikaru-kun. You get to know the characters in this manga so well, they feel like real people. You've watched them grow, cry, laugh, and smile, so it will be so sad to have to say goodbye. This will be a volume that will feel so painfully sad in a number of ways.
But at the same time, I am really looking foward to reading this volume. It really will be nice to a little more progression in the story of Hikaru and his life, however much we get. I want to see how Hikaru adapts to his new school, and I would like to see Sachiko atleast making some progress with Masato's mother before the story cuts off. We've never seen Miyu since volume 6 either, so I would like to be able to see her atleast one more time before the series ends. I will be very sad if we don't get to see Miyu-chan one last time. And then there's Moe-chan, Kanata, Nobauki-kun, Tomoya-kun, Hiroaki -kun, Eri-chan - so many characters, so much love. And I guess that we won't get to see what happens to them in the end.
The final volume comes out in september, which isn't that far away now. It will also include some extra one-shots drawn by Keiko Tobe, which will be interesting to see, as well as some chapter drafts. This is a volume that will have a very melancholy feel to it, but I do look foward to this release. I really look foward to this new, final instalment, in Hikaru and Sachiko's lives.