James Nicoll Reviews

Pan Tokunaga’s Twilight Star Sui and Neri (Tasogare-boshi no Sui to Neri) is a science fiction manga. Serialized in Comic Cune from May 27, 2020, to September 27, 2021, its fifteen chapters were compiled into two tankōbon.

Inexpensive faster-than-light travel combined with the existence of many pristine garden interstellar planets allowed the majority of the human population to flee Earth. By 2531, Earth is a quieter, much emptier world.

For young Sui and her talking sloth sibling Neri, Earth is home.

One cannot remove the majority of the population without economic effects. An infrastructure once able to meet the needs of billions no longer has the workforce to maintain it. Sui and Neri’s world is one of genteel decay, as yesterday’s machines slowly rust and fall apart.

Tourists and other passing travelers provide a precarious income. Sui and Neri run an inn… of sorts. The facilities available at Kutsurogi-no-Yado Inn are extremely basic. Off-worlders might call them primitive. Visitors will stay dry and they will be fed.

University student Shida finds herself in need of temporary accommodation. Kutsurogi-no-Yado Inn has the very qualities she demands: it exists and she has discovered it. Although some aspects of the Inn are eyebrow raising, Shida’s new hosts seem pleasant.

Shida will only be on Earth for a limited time. However, within that time she and her new friends will enjoy a short-lived friendship.

~oOo~

How is it that Sui is human but her sibling, Neri, is an intelligent sloth? Technology!

There almost certainly exists in Japanese a succinct word that means ​“a seemingly bucolic setting whose implications are disquieting, despite which the author focuses only on up-lifting cheerful narratives.” If there is not such a term, it needs to exist. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (all parts of which were reviewed here in 2016, in too many installments to list) would be an example. Twilight Star Sui and Neri is another.

A short list of the details that hint at impending doom:

• Sui and Neri don’t seem old enough to run an inn, but their parents are nowhere to be seen.
• Vital services are slowly but steadily imploding.
• Earth is technologically backward compared to the off-world colonies.
• While the community in which the siblings live is pleasant and safe, forays outside hint that there’s rampant kidnapping and worse.

It all adds up to an Earth that may be about to collapse into post-industrial agrarian poverty. Anyone who could keep things running finds it far easier and far more rewarding to head off-world.

Sui and Neri are used to Earth’s backwardness and comparative poverty, while Shida finds it all quite charming. All of the unpleasantness that could be happening elsewhere stays judiciously out of sight (except for one brief scene). Impending doom is always out of frame.

The characters themselves are cheerfully eccentric or amusingly serious. Their adventures are diverting but (probably) not life threatening. Result: a pleasant read during which Sui and Neri become a bit more aware of the worlds beyond Earth and Sheri learns something about the old home world. 

It’s a pity there are only two volumes. The author no doubt had a keen sense of how much story the setting could support, and had the wisdom to leave readers wanting more¹. It’s all tremendous fun.

If there is an authorized English translation of Twilight Star Sui and Neri available from any bookseller, I was unable to find it².

1: The author was kind enough NOT to promise another installment. That did not prevent this reader from wanting more.

2: If there is no authorized translation, how did I read this manga, you ask? I am resourceful.