So chapter 59 is out on mangadex which means I’m no longer relying on machine translation and can point this out without worrying that I have the context entirely wrong. Now… Shirahama’s great with panelling, composition, body language… well everything really but she uses them with a lot of purpose.
I invite you to go through Olruggio and Qifrey’s part of chapter 59 and check
1) when are they in the same panel, and when aren’t they?
2) when they’re in the same panel, how often do they face each other? and if they are, do we see the speaker’s face?
3) when do the shifts happen?
actually, lemme just gush about the switches in composition - the chapter starts tensely, with qifrey and olruggio set apart by lighting, panel breaks, angle. qifrey’s got his “uh oh” side to the camera. and then olruggio shatters the mood by getting flustered and passionate about what he thinks is going on and whilst qifrey is baffled, it brings them into the same space for a bit.
the two panels on the left there are a single image, split by a panel break. it’s got dual purposes - it’s a good pacing tool for the length of Olruggio’s speech and makes the page look nice (I love how she keeps the bubbles flowing in her work - it’s very clear here, right and down!). it also… separates qifrey from olruggio right at an incredibly pointed shift in their conversation.
whilst olruggio is clearly speaking from some sort of experience re: getting teased for having matching accessories ruining some kind of budding romance (tassel swap? please) they are still very much talking about coco and tartar up until right here. if it wasn’t for the masterful composition it wouldn’t be as obvious that, once again, they’ve shifted into talking about themselves through the veil of talking about their charges (see: chapter 18 and the scalewolf convo). once again, olruggio is trying to subtly extend a hand - implying he’s realised something is up that qifrey isn’t telling him… and qifrey very firmly doesn’t take it.
and… god. him being alone in this rather large panel and cast so much into shadow… that it seems to be olruggio’s perspective… god damn man.
and you know… like… tell me this isnt the face of a man who knows qifrey’s talking about himself. and olruggio. i mean shit, do we know how well that memory spell even worked? he remembered that they were talking about something important!! does he know know?! anyway this has been agonising since this chapter was published sldkfjg
edit: wait also - qifrey’s rebuffing doesn’t have much to go off in the facial expression department where as oru is all expression because once again olruggio is an open book and qifrey glued all the pages together on purpose.