EROMANGA
HALL OF FAME

A second book that arrived after a six-year gap, it made readers slow down with the quiet of its pages. Ito o Yoru stands in the hall as a short-story collection that draws the reader in through empty space and the rendering of place.

It is Takayanagi Katsuya's second collection, published at the end of 2023 in Core Magazine's Megastore Comics line. Its seven stories first appeared in Comic Hotmilk, and the publisher presented the book as the culmination of the artist's work to date. Set in schools, in the hours after class and at an isolated bus stop, the stories portray relationships between adolescent boys and girls.

Readers agree on the sureness of the page. They point to compositions that move freely, an exact grasp of the human figure, and backgrounds and props drawn in full without clutter; one review calls each panel, down to the damp air it renders, a work of art. Others find the characters, boys and girls alike, fully rounded, each carrying a history and feelings of their own.

More than one review describes it as erotic manga to be read slowly, weighing what the story and each panel mean, with something literary in its air. Takayanagi Katsuya has published only two books alone, Erohon Desu yo. in 2017 and this one, and the reviews include the voice of a reader who waited out those six years.

The print edition is dated December 2023; the digital edition appeared first on FANZA and reached DLsite in January 2024. It was selected in the 2023 edition of Kono Ero-Manga ga Sugoi!, chosen by people in the industry, and it stands 145th among the hall's commercial works.