In Translation | "Tomorrow a Bride" by Tatsuhiko Yamagami & Hiromichi Kinjo

Another day another translation! Today we’ve got another from the annals of COM, that legendary alternative magazine started by none other than manga god Osamu Tezuka—and specifically from the October issue of 1971. This is “Tomorrow a Bride” by Tatsuhiko Yamagami and Kinjo Hiromichi.

There isn’t much information about Kinjo Hiromichi readily available unfortunately, but Tatsuhiko Yamagami is one of those many manga writers who has enjoyed a long, rich career while receiving next to no attention in English. A sort of chameleon who can fit himself comfortably into any genre seemingly as easy as breathing without ever losing a literary eye and sense of dialogue (side note, he started publishing prose and screenplays a few decades after today’s one shot), he’s nevertheless most known for his dystopian nightmare Hizaru Kaze, as well as his various dips into sci-fi. And you can tell right away that he knows what he’s doing with “Tomorrow a Bride”, a story that enjoys the kind of wonderfully confident pacing and keenly observed truths that can only come from someone fully in control of what they're doing.

I didn't know it at the time, but I really needed this story when I first read it. And hey, maybe one of you needs it too.

Enjoy!