Good morning everyone,
Today we’re going to examine a manga about a shrunken girl and her normal-size friend. Sou Hamayumiba’s 浜弓場 双 “Small Nozomi and Big Yume” 小さいノゾミと大きなユメ features 12-cm tall high school student Nozomi Koiwa who befriends shut-in Yume Okubo. (NOTE: Their first names have similar meanings. “Nozomi” 望み means “wish” and “Yume” 夢 means “dream.”)
Before we dig into the narrative, let’s briefly discuss the artist and author Sou Hamayumiba. Previously, Sou made Dropout Idol Fruit Tart a series in which an aspiring idol, a former child actor, a model, and a musician band together to save their dormitory. Additionally, Sou made Hanayamata about an exceedingly average Japanese girl and her new American friend who yearns to master a type of Japanese dance called yosakoi. Both Dropout Idol Fruit Tart and Hanayamata were released as manga and anime.
Currently, Sou is working on Majo no Hanaya-san, a story about a girl called Allie Abel who wants to become a witch. Allie hopes to learn magic to make people happy, but while working for a witch who runs a flower shop Allie learns that she can make people happy without using magic. Japanese Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list of Sou’s works, read Sou Hamayumiba’s page here, but it doesn’t provide sources (a link to the only given source was broken as of this writing) so take the information with a grain of salt. Fans can follow Sou on X/Twitter by clicking here.
Small Nozomi and Big Yume first appeared in Monthly Morning Two (a.k.a. Morning Two) in May 2019 and ran until January 2021. (NOTE: Monthly Morning Two 月刊モーニング・ツー is a seinen magazine catering to young adult males. Therefore, don’t expect nudity or sex.)
In addition to appearing in manga anthologies the complete run was also bound together in three tankobon or volumes, shown below.
Kodansha Ltd. (publisher of Monthly Morning Two) also published English versions of the three volumes and I used those for this review. The total work was nearly 500 pages long mostly in black and white, but with a few color pages. Apparently, Kodansha only released it digitally as I cannot find hard copies in English.
As mentioned before, the story was about tiny 16-year old high schooler Nozomi and 22-year old unemployed Yume.
Of interest this comic was inspired by a modern urban legend of a 15-cm tall old man, 15センチおじさん or 小さいおじさん. Yume referenced the legend after she first saw Nozomi. Moreover, she fell asleep watching a video about the “tiny old guy” right before their initial encounter.
The myth of a supernaturally tiny old man first popped up around 2009. More sightings followed and soon it seemed that multiple miniature elderly men were active around Japan. This popular phenomenon inspired several books, at least one dubious photo, and even a few good luck charms.
The comic called Yume a NEET (a young person Not in Employment, Education, or Training). (NOTE: The acronym NEET originated in the United Kingdom during the late 1980s. Some sources switch the order of “employment” and “education.”) Yume quit her job about a year ago. Since then she has been a recluse drinking lots of beer and ordering food (such as discounted doughnuts) online and taking great pains to avoid in-person contact with other human beings.
She did not tell her parents that she quit. Her parents have been providing an allowance. (NOTE: They do this even though they believed she was employed.) However, that allowance was going to end. Long story made short she needs to find employment or she will wind up with no money to buy food or pay for housing!
For her part, Nozomi woke up on a mountain near a Shinto shrine with no memories besides the knowledge that she was a second-year student at Takao Hikawa High School. Nozomi’s subsequent wanderings led to Yume’s apartment. Once there she began working to help Yume turn her life around. On that note, some folks may dislike Nozomi’s tough love.
Nozomi was demanding and curt at times so I can understand where some might prefer a gentler touch, but I can also see how a high schooler like Yume could feel frustrated counseling an older person when Nozomi has her own not insignificant problem, namely being super short. Nozomi was a student, not a trained mental health professional. Furthermore, Nozomi’s approach softened and became more constructive later on.
Matters also became more complicated when another small person, Nae Nakano, appeared. Nae was younger than Nozomi and a bit shorter standing only 10-cm tall. Like Nozomi she also woke up shrunk and with amnesia. Nae and her hamster Tappy then rescued Nozomi from a vicious black cat. Together the two tinies tried to solve the mystery of their missing memories and diminished statures. Readers familiar with “The Borrowers” by Mary Norton may appreciate the depiction of tinies re-purposing human items to build their living spaces.
I do not want to spoil the ending, but am happy to report that there was a satisfactory conclusion. The author provided a rationale for Nae and Nozomi being tiny and gave Yume a rewarding character arc.
As far as negatives, there were a few issues. Most significant was that Yume’s reason for quitting was never explored. Quitting led to her becoming a shut-in. However, no reason was given. Easy enough to guess possible problems such as an abusive supervisor, hostile work environment, unrewarding tasks, etc., but it would have been nice to learn the actual cause. After all if the reason for quitting is unknown how can we know that her next job won’t have the same problem as the last?
On top of that there was a lack of urgency. The author established that Yume needed to find a new job before the next year otherwise she would run out of money. She lived off an allowance provided by her parents, but her mother sent a text stating that they would stop sending that allowance “starting next year.” That deadline was too far off considering that the action took place in April. So, Yume had more than half a year to resolve the problem. Work needed to be done for sure and Nozomi once imagined police finding Yume dead in the apartment so the characters recognized that being a NEET was a problem. But more than six months felt like enough time to make big changes. Thus, there was less tension because Yume had breathing room and presumably sufficient resources to overcome the difficulties. Just needed a little guidance to succeed!
Overall though, the positives outweighed the negatives so I recommend Small Nozomi and Big Yume. It was a quick, but enjoyable read. All three volumes can be purchased on the Amazon Kindle for a hair under $29 or on the Barnes & Noble Nook for about $21.
This review was written by SolomonG and is protected under Fair Use copyright law.
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There She Grows 