Door of Heliotropism – Review

Title:
	Door of Heliotropism
	W pogoni za słońcem
	向日性のとびら  (Koujitsusei no Tobira)

Author: SHOOWA
Artist:  SHOOWA
Volumes: 1
Publishers:
	Studio JG (Polish, 2020)
	Houbunsha (Japanese, 2009)

Sunny Yellow is the Saddest Colour

4.0 out of 5.0 stars4.0

Choosing another BL from my shelf, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from this bright yellow book spine. This colour, sunny and almost acidic, immediately activated emotions in me – a mixture of nostalgia, old memories, and a pinch of sadness, for some reason. “W pogoni za słońcem”, also known as Door of Heliotropism/Koujitsuei no Tobira is a single-volume story by SHOOWA, the writer behind “Bad Boys, Happy Home” I discussed here before. In contrast to that title, this one hasn’t been officially released in English unfortunately. The Polish edition has been published by Studio JG in 2020. From the description, the manga seemed to me like a standard BL story, nothing out of the ordinary, but what I got was much more, which left me with stronger feelings than I anticipated.

Cys Buegette is a thirty-one-year-old architect living in an old European city. His quiet life has been disturbed by the sudden death of his brother who he hasn’t seen for the last 10 years. Now, Cys has to take care of his adopted son, seventeen-year-old Kai. The relationship between those two becomes heated as the youngster keeps pursuing sexual intimacy with his uncle. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg of the untold secrets that the teenager holds. The conspiracy will soon unravel, re-opening old wounds and forgotten memories…

This BL title has EVERYTHING. A significant fourteen years age-gap? Check. Semi-incest? Check. Amnesia? Check. Child trafficking and human experimentation? Check. CIA agents, killers for hire, secret organisations? Check, check, check. It’s quite a dynamic read. Even the author in her notes described the plot as a kaleidoscope, which I wholeheartedly agree with. It reminds me of Banana Fish (which I hope to discuss in the future), and even the colour scheme is similar to the sunny but yet-not-happy yellow cover. I quite enjoy SHOOWA’s art, it has this a little messy sketch style that I particularly appreciate, especially how is drawn!

As I kept reading, I got pulled into the complicated emotions and the relationships between characters. The amount of threads the story has on-going may be overwhelming at first.

However, even though a part of me wishes this manga had more volumes to spread its wings, at the same time maybe the fact that it’s so short makes it incredibly memorable. I couldn’t help but feel this heartache that hasn’t yet dissipated whenever I think of this manga now. Unlike Banana Fish, this one has a happy ending, so if you’re looking for an emotional read that is not too tragic, that’s a title for you.

There is also a side-story manga “Neither Jin nor a Cat Come When Called”, a two-chapter story focusing on Jin, one of the background characters in Heliotropism. It’s a nice supplementary reading material to the main story but by no means necessary to enjoy this one as it’s self-contained.

In terms of a physical release, I love it whenever a manga gets a proper dust jacket treatment.

Even though it’s becoming increasingly rare on the Polish market (or almost nonexistent in the English one), the art or a comic hidden beneath a dust jacket is usually a nice treat for a reader.