In broad outline, A Little Step will be familiar to anyone who has come across the Studio Ghibli anime Whisper of the Heart. In Whisper of the Heart a girl (Shizuku) who dreams of becoming a creative writer meets a boy (Seiji) who dreams of becoming a violin-maker. They encourage each other to take their dreams seriously, and by the end of the story Shizuku has written her first novel and Seiji has committed himself to learning violin-making in Italy.
In A Little Step a girl called Lau Yu Kiu is a talented artist, and would like to study in the UK, but struggles to show other people her art because she’s scared of being judged: “Every time I think about what other people will think of my work, I feel uncomfortable, and then I can’t paint”. She gets permission to use an empty classroom where she can be creative in peace, with nobody looking over her shoulder or passing remarks, but while she’s at work she hears somebody playing guitar on the stairs outside. It turns out to be a boy called Lee Hou Yuet, who is famous throughout the school because he “never interacts with anyone”.
Hou, it emerges, wants to be a musician, but his step-father wants him to work in finance. In his free time during the school day, he improvises jazz on an acoustic guitar on the stairs by himself, and in the evenings he plays rock on an electric guitar in a pub called the Black Stone.
The two of them strike up a friendship. Hou encourages Yu Kiu to improvise drawings while he is improvising music on his guitar, and as a result of this exercise she finds her art taking a new direction – “These are nothing like what I normally draw.” He also coaches her not to be discouraged by other people’s comments, but to listen to the useful ones and ignore the rest, and above all to trust her own inner voice. She, in turn, encourages him to believe in his talent and not to be afraid to express his more sensitive side. As things progress, and they start to rely on each other, they decide to collaborate on a joint exhibit in the end of term show.
The comic is drawn in crisp black outlines filled with pink and blue washes. It’s set in Hong Kong, and the backgrounds are detailed and realistic – school interiors, city streets, buses and trams, all in perfect perspective. The characters are in typical manga style: realistic figure drawing; glossy hair; and faces with small delicate features and big expressive eyes, which can suddenly become much more cartoonish in moments of excitement.
It’s a proper teen romance, and as such of course it’s more likely to appeal to readers of a romantic inclination than to those who look for visceral thrills and big explosions in their comic books. But as romantic stories go, this one is refreshingly unsexualised. There’s a bit of hand-holding, and that’s as far as the physical contact goes. Not a single kiss. It’s also striking how the relationship between Hou and Yu Kiu involves and is validated by a commitment to work hard and strive for success in their chosen vocations. Again this is a very strong theme in Whisper of the Heart. There is a feeling that serious love is a part of growing up, and the process of growing up involves not only making a lasting commitment to another person, but also making a lasting commitment to a certain career path, and to whatever effort is needed to make a success of that career path. So as well as being a romantic story, this is also an aspirational story, a story about growing up, and a story about the virtues of hard work.
Mimi Szeto (W/A) • Nakama Press/Mad Cave Studios, $10.99
Review by Edward Picot
