Parental Overinterference, Sexual Abuse, Abuse, Poverty… Why “Kamimachi,” a Manga About the Loneliness and Reality of “Runaway Girls,” Draws Sympathy

The interview with a former “god-waiting girl” was “quite graphic and painful to listen to.

Have you ever heard of the term “Kami-waiting”? This is the act of underage runaway girls searching for a place to sleep, eat, and drink on social networking sites. Since the spread of the new type of corona infection, there has been an increase in the number of cases of abductions of minors in which these “god-waiting” girls have become victims.

In addition, among the “Toyoko Kids” who have been highlighted as a social problem due to the COVID-19 crisis, there are many runaway girls who have lost their places of residence as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.

There is a manga that depicts such “god-waiting” girls. It is Machiko Today’s latest work, “KAMIMACHI” (top and bottom, published by Shueisha).

This ambitious work reflects contemporary social issues such as parental over-involvement, sexual abuse, abuse, and poverty, but in fact, Ms. Today began serializing this work in 1919, before the COVID-19 crisis brought the issue of runaway girls to the forefront. Why did she decide to depict “runaway girls”? We asked her about the realities she learned about through her interviews, as well as the problems of sexual violence that have come to light one after another in recent years.

The reason why I decided to depict runaway girls was a suggestion from my editor.

I had a vague idea that there were girls who asked men to stay over, but I imagined it as something similar to the “petit runaway” type of girls who stay over at their friends’ houses in a casual manner and return home when they feel like it. I was imagining something similar to a “petit runaway. I was unaware that this was called “kami-waiting.

But as I interviewed the people involved, I realized for the first time that it was something completely different from what I had imagined.

Machiko says that the people she interviewed today were former “kamikakei” girls who are now taking care of them. What was shocking was that they “talked cheerfully at first glance,” but the content of their stories was “quite graphic and harsh to the point that it was painful to listen to.

Sexual Issues” and “Family Issues” that forced us to step in

There are four main girls in “Kamimachi” who are waiting for God. The main character “Uka” (hatching), who attended a prestigious high school and left home because she could not stand her over-involved mother; “Nagisa” (chrysalis), a girl who left home because of sexual abuse in the family; “Ageha” (swallowtail), a former child actress; and “Yoh” (larva), from a poor family, whose names evoke the growth process of a butterfly. How were these characters created?

I had decided from the beginning to create Nagisa as a character to guide Uka.

In other works (such as the main character San and her best friend Mayu in “cocoon,” which was inspired by the Himeyuri Cadets), I have often depicted a combination of a main character and a girl who guides the main character. I created two characters, Ageha, who has a glamorous atmosphere, and Yoh, who is a child with low self-esteem. I created the four characters by extracting elements from the stories I heard during the interviews.

Because this is not a “reportage manga” but rather a “fiction” manga, Mr. Kyo says that he does not just tell the facts, but rather he draws the stories in a way that makes them interesting and interesting.

One of the elements that he had to go into was the issue of sex.