Life (manga)

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For other uses, see Life (disambiguation).

Life

ライフ (Raifu)
Genre	Drama, Shoujo
Manga
Authored by	Keiko Suenobu
Publisher	Kodansha Tokyopop Heyne
Serialized in	Bessatsu Friend
Original run	2002 –
No. of volumes	13

Life (ライフ, Raifu^?) is a shoujo manga series created by Japanese writer Keiko Suenobu, well known for her work on Vitamin and Happy Tomorrow. Life deals with many controversial subjects such as self mutilation, rape, suicide, and manipulation.

1 Plot
2 Characters
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Characters

Some character profiles include details from Life volumes that have not been released in America.

Ayumu Shiiba: A High school student who always struggles with her tests. However, she is very intelligent and with study, excels in school. After a horrible dissolution of her friendship in middle school, she has difficulties fitting into high school life and starts to become a cutter. She lives with her single middle-class mom and younger sister, Akane, in a company house. However, Miki's friendship gives her strength and Shiiba is able to stop cutting.
Manami Anzai: Ayumu's first friend at Nishidate high school. She's obsessed with her boyfriend, and became suicidal when they broke up, even though the breakup turned out to be short-term. Manami was once teased when she was younger, but is now the bully towards anyone who she feels deserves it (she was behind Miki's teasing after an incident at camp). She is a very sexual girl and uses that to her advantage, getting boys to do some of her dirty work. She is manipulative and spoiled, and as a daughter of a rich CEO, uses her powers and conceit to force others to do her will, usually by blackmail or threats, under a guise of acting bubbly, cute, and friendly. People tend to take her side, even through her lies.
Shii-chan: Her surname is Shinozuka, which is probably why Ayumu calls her Shii-chan (her given name is never mentioned); Ayumu's ex-best friend who excelled in academics. She once promised a worried Ayumu that they would remain friends even if they went to different high schools. However, when Ayumu scores higher on the entrance exams than Shii-chan does and lies about it to make her feel better, Shii-chan feels devastated and betrayed. She hurts Ayumu deeply despite her promise and is the scapegoat for Ayumu's cutting.
Miki Hatori: A bullied girl in Ayumu's class. Strikingly beautiful, she is usually the top student of her school, and has a quiet willpower and strength. She empathizes Ayumu. She, like Ayumu, is the victim of teasing by Manami and her gang; but, unlike Ayumu, she does not care. Not much is known about her life, but it appears that she lives alone. Her parents got divorced due to money issues. Her mother is literally never around; her father's job keeps him from seeing his family. She has a "sweetheart" in her home town.
Katsumi Sako: Manami's boyfriend. He has a fetish for bondage and keeps a scrapbook of people he's raped. When Ayumu comes across this book, he molests her and makes her his 'slave'. However, his evil plans for her are thwarted because he has an abusive father who beats him to ensure his future relationship with Anzai (both Katsumi's and Manami's fathers are rich CEO's of famous companies). He is seemingly polite and sweet, but is, in reality, manipulative and abusive. He begins stalking Ayumu, referring to himself as her 'master' for blackmail purposes, and even completely tricks Ayumu's mother into thinking he is a nice person. Katsumi is later shown having a relationship with his teacher, Ms. Toda.
Ms. Toda (Toda Sensei): Ayumu's Homeroom teacher. She's has a "Peace at any price" principle, leading her to question and even ignore Ayumu's declaration of teasing. She is shown as very sympathetic to Katsumi and Manami.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Trivia

In volume one, Ayumu cuts her left wrist 5 times (after Shii-chan dumps their friendship), and cuts the other side of the same arm 3 times (from stress and boredom). In Volume 2, she cuts 8 times in a row on the front of her right thigh (after waking up from a flashback of Katsumi's sexual assault on her). Ayumu does not cut in volume 3--she smashes the box-cutter on purpose. In volume 4, she cuts her wrist once more, using a metal hook (she is emotionally disintegrating because of full-blown harassment by all of her classmates except Hatori). Thus, she currently has 20 cuts.