My Pancreas Broke, But My Life Got Better

And today's pick is My Pancreas Broke But My Life Got Better written and illustrated by Nagata Kabi - translated to English by Jocelyne Allen. Originally published in 2022, the English version was published in late 2023 by Seven Seas Entertainment.

Technically the sixth installment in Kabi's diary series since My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness.

And while I do generally try and just review series in one or two videos and not get stuck making blow by blow accounts like this, each instalments continues to be fairly short/stand alone and so I continue to justify this to myself.

This manga is rated for older teens. Content notes obviously for tough medical crises stuff, also nudity, ed, harmful substance use, internal organs are turned into little cute characters, and sex.

Keywords that came to mind: pandemic, coping strategies, care, orange, and mental health.

The publisher's summary is "The latest diary manga from the Harvey Award-winning creator of My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness and My Wandering Warrior Existence.

In this new autobiographical manga following My Wandering Warrior Existence, Nagata Kabi has quit drinking in an attempt to get healthier–or she’s trying to, anyway. Her former struggles with alcohol led to pancreatitis and a serious hospitalization, and now she has no choice but to give up drinking. Follow the author as she details the quest to improve her health during a global pandemic."

Digging a bit deeper into the material, while covering different events there is a fair amount of overlap in themes with My Alcoholic Escape From Reality which was originally published in 2019. Although of course this time around we are in the heat of global covid mitigation efforts. Nagata is self aware of this second cycle through pancreatitis and highlights what they already know about the treatment process and how they really really really really really need to quit drinking this time around.

Reading through Kabi's work can be a bit of an emotional whirlwind and one hopes that they can find some stability. Although their current literary success does seem predicated on the chaos continuing... Such is life under capitalism I suppose.

I would have appreciated some more reflection on the Japanese health system as a whole, but it's not too surprising that didn't happen. Fish rarely question the water they are swimming in. after all.

The art continues to be extremely expressive and dynamic. I feel like we get more line detail then in some of the earlier comics. It did take me this long to realize that orange books are the hospital books and pink has been more focused on non medical self realizations; with a particular focus on relationships generally.

Looking at the writing side of things, Nagata's skills are really clear in the way they continue to deliver stories that feel relatable on a super human level. Highlight things that most people don't want to share about themselves and keep a certain dark humor about it all. An inside look at a level of self-sabotage that can be mystifying to some people. Not to me, but to some people.

Looking at the intersections I try to highlight in each of my reviews. We skip past race, sexuality, gender, place, and class to exclusively focus on disability. A very unusual state of things honestly.

And before we wrap up I feel like pointing out some other queer diary manga. So if you haven't already read I would recommend X Gender Volumes 1 & 2 by Asuka Miyazaki, The Girl That Can’t Get A Girlfriend by Mieri Hiranishi, and looking beyond manga we'll mention Gender Slices by Jey Pawlik because the style felt more similar then different.

To conclude, an interesting read. Obviously I've read these volumes pretty spread out; I wonder what it would be like to come to these in quick succession. Another interesting installment and a very solid three stars.