Hibari’s Morning: Shedding light on an uncomfortable reality

To be a woman means to live in a world that is hostile to your very existence, even more so if you are a teenage girl. There is an unspoken horror to all of this: on one hand, you are facing puberty and, on the other, the way the world perceives your changes. You are seen as a body more than a person. Your autonomy is stripped away through sexual violence, yet you are blamed for it. Tomoko Yamashita's Hibari's Morning, also known as Hibari no Asa is a story that sheds light on this devastating reality. It is essentially how society fails vulnerable young women and girls, how peers, authority figures, family members, acquaintances, all turn a blind eye and become complicit in the violence against them. 
The manga series began publication in the Feel Young magazine in 2011 and was serialised till 2013. This josei work (targeted towards adult women) follows the story of a 14-year-old Hibari Teshima, a school student who is frequently objectified for her body by everyone around her. 
From the very first page of the story, an uncomfortable feeling lingers as the page displays a figure of a man looming over someone. The reader, from the very first chapter will get the inkling that something is very, very wrong here. Then we dive into the story, not from the perspective of the protagonist Hibari, but her cousin. In the following chapters we get to see the inner thoughts of her cousin's girlfriend and his friend, Hibari's classmates, teacher and more. We see their own struggles, from insecurity, apathy, body image issues, commodification, misogyny- both internalised and overt, bullying, hubris, resentment towards oneself and others. We see Hibari from their perspectives, how they project their own issues onto her, reducing her to a mere body only. 
To the men, Hibari is "the seductive schoolgirl". To the women, she is "the other woman", the person they project their own internalised misogyny and insecurities upon. 

This story spans for two volumes, separated in 14 chapters. Yet the author deliberately gives the reader the insight into other characters, or rather the abettors before Hibari, the victim herself. It is only in the later chapters do we catch a glimpse of Hibari's inner world, and it is heartbreaking. Unlike the sexualised caricature that many characters view her as, Hibari is shy and fidgety, with hunched shoulders and a thousand-yard stare as though the world is weighing down on her. 
An awkward, lonely 14-year-old girl, punished for having a body that is "desirable" to others, punished for being a victim of violence both at home and outside it. 
Hibari's Morning is not a thriller; however, it certainly does dissect a crime. The nature of the crime is not spelled out at first, but as we go further into the story, the more it reveals itself. By the second volume, it becomes clear what had happened to Hibari. There is disbelief, there is debate among the characters, bargaining with their own consciences, however, nobody is willing to take the responsibility. And how can they, when patriarchy requires one to be complacent? 
Hibari, the protagonist, is named after the lark, a bird that symbolises hope. 
Yet Tomoko Yamashita is unforgiving in her portrayal of how society fails its daughters, how rape culture is woven in the fabric of our being. Even the chapters are titled as "Talks", this talk isn't just the words exchanged by characters, it is also their inner voices, their rationalisations. We catch a glimpse of what it is like to be someone who does not fit the societal beauty standards and how that sense of otherness causes resentment towards Hibari as though there is validation in the objectification. It is infuriating, yet one can see why someone might think that way. The story even depicts one of Hibari's own classmates becoming a victim of something similar, showing how it is a systematic failure, how nobody is spared.  As the story reaches its climax, Hibari "holds her breath", and we suffocate with her, waiting for the morning to come. Hibari's fate was sealed due to the inaction of everyone around her. There lies the tragedy, every bystander was an abettor to this crime. 
I picked up Hibari's Morning with little knowledge of Yamashita's penmanship, not knowing how her raw portrayal of the subject matter would move me. As I calculated our ages, I realised that I was almost the same age as Hibari in 2013.  Despite the story taking place in Japan, I could vividly recall incidents from my own adolescence grappling with the physical changes in puberty, being considered "fast" because of them, the sexualisation of teenage bodies by adults, the harassment and then to be blamed for it. Hibari's Morning is a difficult read because not only is it painful, but it also reflects our lived realities. I think one of the highlights of this manga is the author's note in the end, one that gives us a glimpse of how Tomoko Yamashita thinks. 
All in all, Hibari's Morning is a deeply nuanced, well written story that does not shy away from condemning the patriarchal system that continues to endanger young girls and women. 

Tiasha Idrak is drowning in a swamp of her own thoughts at the moment. She writes and daydreams, the latter is more applicable most of the time. She is still trying to come up with a proper author's bio. Tell her to stop procrastinating at tiashaidrak27@gmail.com.