As an introvert who’s social battery lasts approximately 2 hours, it’s a miracle how I survive
school days. So really, what are my qualifications to write about love when I spend all of my free
time bedrotting with my laptop?
The “true” answer to that would be that I really don’t and I’m just yapping, but let’s pretend like I
actually know what I’m talking about.
Love is the defining thing that makes us human. It’s an experience that all of us are destined to
live through. It’ll come in the form of many different people, many different kinds of love.
Based on the first book “Stranger by the Shore”, a manga series originally illustrated by Kanna
Kii, the animated film captures the very essence of the awkwardness and rigidity of love through
the queer experience. Of learning to love someone else when you can barely come to terms
with your own identity.
Speaking from firsthand experience, being queer and out is truly a suffocating experience. It
takes an impossible amount of bravery to not be confident enough within yourself to embrace
your own identity, let alone bear the judgement of others.
We live in a society where I’ve gotten the f slur thrown at me so many times that I’m
desensitized to it. Where being LGBTQ+ means painting a target on your back for humiliation,
simply because you’re brave enough to be vulnerable and showcase this side of yourself in front
of others.
It’s hard to love yourself, let alone love others when you’re deemed as “wrong” by society for
just existing.
Stranger by the Shore will always be a comfort movie of mine. I’ll always strongly recommend it
to anyone, even if they’re not gay, even if they don’t watch anime, simply for how well it captures
how we as humans navigate love.
It’s strange, how in the span of an one hour runthrough, in a fictional setting with fictional
characters, how these relationships and these experiences feel so real to the viewer. The film
truly resonated with me, and I believe that Stranger by the Shore has something for anyone.
So if you want to, give it a watch or a read. The manga’s available pretty much everywhere, I
found it at a local Indigo.
Love, Tarrence.
The Blue and White 