[ID: A digital painting in an anime style of Hikaru and Yoshiki from Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu. The background is the night sky, with the moon and three stars.
Only Yoshiki's head is visible, large and blending in with the night background. His eyes are shadowed. Hikaru is standing on top of Yoshiki's face, gazing at the moon. /End ID]
Hgsn has some incredible art and page composition, but out of the entire manga so far, to me this is the best panel of them all. Hell, this might be my favorite panel of any manga ever. (Note: Due to respecting the scanlator's wishes, I blanked out the dialogue and replaced all necessary dialogue with the official English source)
1- Build-up
Before I get to the panel itself, lets first talk about the pages before: For context, this is in chapter 2. Yoshiki has just found out about "Hikaru", and its trying to adjust to this new reality. As they walk from school to Yoshiki's house, Yoshiki asks him if he killed Hikaru. This is how the previous two pages look like:
Notice how the half shading effect is done in hatch marks. This is the first sign the all-black shading is a stylistic choice used to convey something.
Look at the balance the two pages form when you put them together: half white, half black, half black, half white. They compliment each other, both in color balance and in panel shape.
We have to turn the page to hear Hikaru's answer to Yoshiki's question. This gives the control of the narrative back to the viewer. This creates tension and build-up to it, it is a common tactic famously employed by Junji Ito in his famous "page-turner" moments where the viewer has to turn the page to see the monster. Except in this instance we are not revealing monsters, or are we?
2- The page
I'm not gonna get into too much detail on the page itself, I just want to point out the juxtaposition between the page composition of this page and the previous two. The last two were balanced and had all the panels closed while this one is much more liberal, bringing a feeling of unbalance, like something just shifted. I'd say the black and white balance is still there, with the Hikaru on white and Yoshiki on black panel side by side and all, which actually brings me to my next point:
3- Black and White
Honestly this could be an entire analysis post of itself, where do I even start?! Let's go from the very beginning. This is the very first time we learn of "Hikaru" :
Notice how the panel is colored black. In fact, throughout the story, we see black panels being spoken by "Hikaru", usually right before he does something unnatural:
And here are the only two instances we see of the Brain-snatcher's true form:
• He's literally a black blob, just like the text bubbles! And now combine that with Hikaru's white hair, and the fact his name means to be bright, and what's the brightest color but white, and there is a clear color symbolism going on:
Hikaru=White
"Hikaru"=Black
4-The Panel
And now we're back to the original panel! Taking all the other points in mind, we can analyze the panel itself
First, his expression. My G-d, his expression! His raised eyebrows and his squinted eyes, making his pupils way larger, make the expression seem almost childish and pitiful. But the half black-out face turns this pity look to an ominous one. Not being able to see the face or having your face obstructed is easy path into the uncanny valley, which I think is the case for this scene. Immediately 180 from "aww the poor guy" to "what is he hiding?"
The white panel says "I like you" while the black panel says "I'm crazy for you". HOWEVER, The white bubble is by the black side of his face and the black bubble is by the white side of his face. So which Hikaru is saying that? Is "Hikaru" crazy for Yoshiki, while Hikaru just liked him, or the other way around? Did the original Hikaru ever love Yoshiki, or is that the monster's feelings? Well we don't know! That's the premise of the whole manga! In one panel!
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