Spacewalking With You 1 by Inuhiko Doronoda
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In all its glory, volume one felt like a standalone volume, a storyline where its themes aren't spoon-fed to readers but where it welcomes and tugs at your heartstrings. Even the ending felt like a continuous path for all characters where we can say “I hope everything goes well for them” so I was pleasantly surprised to know that their story continues in another volume. I can’t wait to read and see more of them (especially Uno, I wish for his happiness)

It warms my heart that there are stories like this, because we need it.

This title is surprising, I thought for sure that I was retiring from reading school life tags but there was something about the title that called out to me. I later realized all the characters are walking miscommunication tropes.

Kobayashi’s working on his own trying to learn why he finds certain things hard that are easy for everyone else, then he meets Uno who for other people in their environment knows that he’s different from others where his energy is cranked up and not at par with the social cues teenagers are used to.

Through Uno entering Kobayashi’s space, he tries Uno’s coping mechanism of taking notes to help himself cope and make sense of the world and grasp on its order.

That scene where Kobayashi learns that one of Uno’s notes is “even when it hurts, wait to cry about it until you get home” because we all saw how much Uno has been trying to live through the rules of growing up without knowing what he did wrong even when he tried his utmost to be considerate of everyone because he thought it would be wrong.
I also cried with them.

The characters feel real there’s raw authenticity in seeing these kids find ways to care for their growing pains, finding answers to their unanswered questions:

- Kobayashi on why he finds it hard to do things that comes easy to other people
- Saku on why his best friend, Kobayashi started being a different person
- Mikawa on why he always says the wrong things when he didn’t mean it
- Inoue-sensei wondering if his students would ever listen to him on his final year before retiring
- And Uno…we shouldn't disturb Uno, he has his routines.

As an adult who sometimes feels like I too am spacewalking with no one around knowing what’s going on with me who fails to tether because I forget or it’s simply a gargantuan mission that I overthink of failing then I actually do, reading this made me feel seen. I too needed a reminder that it is okay to question why I find things hard when people say it is easy, that maybe, I just need to take note of things so that when I am overwhelmed I can see what the next step is.

That such simple things are capable of being lifelines for people who find most things overwhelming.

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