Content Warning: this manga involves mentions of suicide and child abuse, both physical and sexual. Abuse outside of verbal is not shown on page, but there are bruises, bandages, and an arm cast shown on the character as a result. The character is also mentioned to have jumped off a building and is shown self-harming during a flashback later in the volume.

This is NOT a spoiler-free review.

Before going into My Broken Mariko, all I knew was that it was about a woman who had lost her best friend and that she was taking her ashes somewhere to be scattered. I had also seen many people say it was a manga they loved and were deeply moved by. Since I love psychological manga, it had been on my list for at least two years, and I finally decided to read it earlier this year. It was time to climb out of my manga reading slump by thrusting myself into something that would hopefully stir my fizzled out emotions.

Well, this manga succeeded at that.

The first scene is our protagonist, 27-year-old Tomoyo Shiino, eating a warm bowl of ramen as the news announces that her best friend Mariko has been found dead after taking a large amount of sleeping pills and jumping off the balcony of her fourth floor apartment. Tomoyo is obviously shaken to the bone by the news, since Mariko had been smiling and didn’t seem as if she would do such a thing the last time she saw her. Tomoyo is unable to think of anything other than “go straight home” as she stumbles out of the restaurant. Her mind is a wreck of questions and shock once she gets home and thinks to herself that she once again wasn’t able to do anything for her best friend.

But then she gets an idea. An absolutely daring, unhinged act of love and grief: she takes a large knife from her kitchen and decides to steal Mariko’s ashes from her horribly abusive father.

Tomoyo manages to innocently–though haphazardly–act her way into his home past the woman he remarried four years ago. When she sees Mariko’s ashes sitting on the table, she literally lunges for them across the room as her father watches in shock. There’s a struggle between them until Tomoyo whips out her kitchen knife and screams that a disgusting man like him doesn’t deserve to mourn Mariko–not the woman, nor the little girl he never once treated as a daughter. The thought of him trying to do so makes her want to puke.

The man sees Mariko over Tomoyo as she screams his crimes with a knife pointed at him, and then Tomoyo takes Mariko’s ashes and jumps out of the window with them. What will she do next now that she might have the cops called on her? She doesn’t even have a place in mind for where she will scatter the ashes. Why didn’t Mariko write her a letter? Why couldn’t her words ever reach her while she was alive? Why did Mariko think she would be lucky to have anyone “love a person like her” when she was the most important person in the world to Tomoyo? Why didn’t she ask Tomoyo to die with her?

Tomoyo digs out the letters that Mariko had sent her when they were younger and starts to pour over them alongside their memories. She eventually recalls that Mariko had once mentioned wanting to go to Cape Marigaoka together when they were teens, but her father had made that dream impossible. Tomoyo decides that must be where she needs to scatter her ashes and gets on a ten hour train ride. There’s a heartbreakingly beautiful page where Tomoyo falls asleep while clutching the container of ashes to her chest, and in place of the ashes for one moment is Mariko being held in her arms. The two originally met in middle school, and you can tell that Tomoyo felt guilt at being unable to do anything to stop the abuse Mariko had been facing. Here, as an adult, she holds the fragile middle school image of Mariko in her arms, protecting her from the world.

I won’t spoil the ending of the story, but I think this manga is one I can categorize under stories that everyone will need someday, even if not at this very moment. If it doesn’t hit you right now, it will. We all lose someone we love eventually, for various reasons, and this manga is for those who are experiencing that grief and pain. For when you’re asking how the person could suddenly leave a gaping hole where they once were, and if you ever think that you’re not loved by at least one person who would grieve their heart out for you.

Tomoyo fears losing her memories of Mariko as each second ticks by–of her becoming idealized now that she’s gone despite all of the times she had thought Mariko was a pain to deal with. Mariko wasn’t a perfect person. She was someone who felt as if she was “broken so badly that she didn’t know how to put herself back together,” but Tomoyo loved her deeply. She told Mariko that the abuse she faced was never her fault, but the fault of the weakness and cruelty of the assholes around her. Now, she fears Mariko might end up always being perfect within her memories.

Final Thoughts:
This manga really would’ve destroyed me if I had read it several years ago. I absolutely think that it’s worth buying and reading if you have the chance. It’s a beautiful hardcover release with an inside color page that’s worth owning for yourself. There’s also a short story titled Viska at the end that I enjoyed. It felt like I was reading a short film. Waka Hirako’s power of expression and the raw emotions radiating from her artwork is what impressed me the most in both stories. I’m very excited for any future manga that she creates.