Huh, now this is a manga I didn't expect to find. I just randomly stumbled across Bones of an Invisible Human while scrolling through AniList and found that it had a complete English scanlation. I decided to sit down and read it, thinking I'd kill some time...and read the whole thing in almost one sitting. Not gonna lie, this is actually a surprisingly heartfelt manga that tackles the subject of child abuse and patricide with sensitivity and nuance. The story centers on a young girl named Aya Kinomiya, whose life isn't exactly the best. Her father rules the household with an iron fist and frequently hits her mother. At one point, Aya wishes she could just be invisible...and to her surprise, her wish is granted! Aya somehow gains the ability to turn invisible, and she wastes no time putting it to use. When she gets older, she does the unthinkable: While invisible, she stabs her father in the middle of the street, murdering him in retaliation for all that he put her family through. But the deed brings her no respite, and guilt weighs heavy on her as she starts high school, convinced that she has no right to live a normal life. She contemplates turning herself in, but when some new friends enter her life, she begins putting it off more and more...

If you're worried that the girls on the covers being nude means that there'll be scenes showing the underaged female main characters nude in this manga, don't worry. Other than the covers, which never go past the top of the girls' chests, there's no nudity, sexualization, or ecchi scenes in this manga. I read the whole thing and checked. Just wanted to throw that out there. Anyway, onto the review! For a story that starts out with a murder, Bones of an Invisible Human is surprisingly grounded in its narrative approach. A lot of the manga focuses on just Aya, the time she spends at school, and the friends she makes. This isn't a story where Aya uses her powers willy-nilly and does whatever the heck she wants. But I think the story's more grounded approach here works, because it spends a lot of time characterizing Aya, fleshing her out, and focusing on her life after she does the deed and how it affects her, allowing the audience to care about her and see her not simply a criminal, but a normal, desperate teenage girl who had to make hard choices with no right answer, who's been through things no child should ever have to go through. The drama is always quiet and never leans into emo territory.

Because of the author's choice to make the narrative more grounded and down-to-earth, Aya as a main character really carries the story on her back. Yes, she did something horrible out of desperation, with the story making it clear that her bad home life has resulted in her being constantly in survival mode. She's constantly grappling with conflicting desires or whether she even deserves happiness or normalcy in light of what she did. But the story has her slowly, gradually change over the course of the manga, and how experiencing a life with guilt constantly hanging over her like a shadow, alongside navigating it with the support of her new friends, helps her evolve and change her perspective, making her a much more complex character. My only complaint is that I wish the other characters, such as Aya's family and friends, had received this treatment as well. As much as I like Kana and Shiori and the roles they play in Aya's life, they don't really have much to them other than their primary character traits, and I would have liked to learn their backstories or why they turned out the way they did. Even Aya's family doesn't have much to them, especially her older brother, who doesn't even so much as talk until the penultimate chapter.

Going back to the manga's reliance on subtlety and grace over exaggerated melodrama, even the art reflects the series' grounded nature. The art itself has a slight ruggedness to it that sells the kind of story its telling, though the linework itself is sharp and clean, with a lot of hard contrast in the shading. The character designs are deliberately simple, leaning far more on the realistic side of things, though the mangaka makes up for this by having the characters be much more expressive in subtle things like eye movements and posture, using those to communicate the characters' emotions and show us what they're feeling. For example, when Aya is invited to a friend's house, she asks said friend if it's okay for them to play video games with the friend's dad, and her friend says yes. Aya has a blank, confused expression on her face, which shows that something completely ordinary to us speaks volumes of what she was made to experience at the hands of her own father. I will say, Jun Ogino is a master at showing over telling, along with using panels that have no dialogue at all to great effect. Since the manga is only four volumes long, it's a breeze to read through, with the steady, deliberate pacing moving the story forward without rushing things.

One thing I'm sure that some readers will take issue with is the ending, where it stops right before a certain event that Aya talks about. Some may call it inconclusive, and it doesn't show what happens next. I personally had no problem with it because with how short Bones of an Invisible Human is, I didn't think that event would be the focus, and it's clear the manga is much more about Aya's arc than having a conclusive ending. To quote another review, the manga feels less like a fireworks show and more like a cold, winter night, even down to the ending, and considering the nature of the story, I think that's fitting. Some time ago, I read another manga about a girl contemplating killing her abusive father called May My Father Die Soon, only it doesn't have supernatural powers and the MC is both physically and sexually abused by her father. That manga doesn't have a full English scanlation yet, and from what I've read, while I respect what its trying to do, parts of it come off as pretty tasteless because of the fetishy, almost Male Gaze-y way the mangaka chose to draw the scenes where the MC is sexually abused by her father. Between that and Bones of an Invisible Human, I find I like Bones a little better by virtue of the fact that it treats the subjects of dometic and child abuse with more tact and sensitivity without the tasteless elements that May My Father Die Soon has.

Bones of an Invisible Human is a quiet, poignant, and surprisingly wholesome manga about a girl coming to terms with the decision she made and how it affects her life afterward. While it has its issues, I still found it an intriguing, thought provoking read, and I recommend it for those who like their crime stories to be more grounded and tackle sensitive issues with sensitivity and grace.

Update, 5/27/2023: Okay, I found out I was wrong about one thing. Some time after the manga ended, Jun Ogino wrote an extra chapter that's exclusive to the tankobon, called chapter 22.5. Said chapter shows Aya and Kana having sex in explicit detail (Though not at the level of hentai). Apparently, Jun Ogino wanted to have Aya and Kana be in a lesbian relationship, but the comic imprint that was publishing Bones was against him showing openly LGBT characters for some reason. Ogino would get around this by publishing this extra chapter outside of the manga's imprint when the tankobons were released. The chapter itself can easily be skipped if you're not into that, but I'm personally glad Ogino found a way to stick to his original vision. Plus, I will say I am SO happy that Aya and Kana's sexual encounter is explicitly mentioned to be consensual on both ends. If it wasn't, I would have thrown a shitfit and rated this manga a LOT lower.