Good Morning, Good Night, and See You Tomorrow, Vol. 1

By Shige “CJ” Suzuki

When her doctor tells her she has cancer, Momiji Akiyama does not collapse into tears or despair. Instead, she takes note of the doctor’s effort to show sympathy while delivering the devastating diagnosis and responds to it with a smile, almost cheerfully saying, “I’ll be fine, really! Cancer runs in my family, so I’m used to it.” This is who she is: someone so attuned to and concerned about the feelings of others that she places their comfort and well-being before her own even in a moment like this. Moka Onmae’s manga series Good Morning, Good Night, and See You Tomorrow. follows Akiyama’s path of personal growth as she navigates the challenges and uncertainties of her illness. Yet this journey does not lead to a simple reaffirmation of the self or an individualistic notion of independence; rather, the manga traces her (re)discovery of small but meaningful joys and moments of happiness through renewing connections with the people around her, even amid the challenges of her illness.

Moka Onmae occupies a unique place in the world of contemporary manga, working at the intersection of autobiographical and fictional comics. Her debut work, We Are Crew! (CREW de gozaimasu! , 2015–present; serialized irregularly), is an “essay manga” that draws on her experiences as a flight attendant in depicting the demanding, often unseen aspects of cabin crew work. Essay manga, for unfamiliar readers, is a largely autobiographical genre of Japanese comics in which authors depict personal experiences and mundane interactions with those around them in humorous or lighthearted ways. Works in this genre frequently employ chibi character designs—figures with oversized heads, small bodies, and minimal detail—to underscore the comedic elements of the real-life situations they convey. In We Are Crew!, Onmae portrays the behind-the-curtain challenges of the job, juxtaposing the intensity of safety officer training, the emotional demands of attending to passengers, and small but satisfying accomplishments in a way that is both entertaining and relatable.

Unlike her previous work, Good Morning, Good Night, and See You Tomorrow. (serialized on the Souffle website by AKITASHOTEN since 2023) is a fictional manga centered on Akiyama, a flight attendant diagnosed with cancer. Although technically fictional, the manga draws extensively on Onmae’s own experiences with cancer, lending the story a profound layer of personal meaning. Stylistically, she has adopted a more polished and elegant drawing approach, with detailed character designs, moving away from the cartoony approach of her debut work. This refined visual style allows Onmae to capture the protagonist’s fluctuating emotions as she navigates life with illness while reconnecting with others. It is precisely this careful attention, grounded in the author’s own lived experience, that gives the work its depth and emotional resonance.

Although illness narratives often privilege the first-person voice of a patient-author, Onmae takes a different approach. She draws not only on her own experience with cancer but also on her past role as a caregiver for a family member with cancer. This dual perspective makes her work particularly compelling, offering insight into both the patient’s vulnerability and the physical and emotional demands of caregiving. In the early pages of the manga, the story unfolds mainly from the protagonist’s perspective, but as the serialization progresses, some episodes are narrated from the viewpoints of various people in her life, including friends, former colleagues, and fellow patients, some of whom strugle with how to support someone living with illness. In this way, Onmae’s manga moves beyond a purely first-person narrative to show how family, friends, and caregivers navigate emotional distance, concerns, and the practical challenges of care. She portrays these interactions with nuance, demonstrating that illness affects not only the individual but also the larger social network, situating care within relational, social, and institutional contexts. In doing so, her work transcends a singular autobiographical account to offer a socially grounded, multifaceted perspective on illness and caregiving.

This broader, relational perspective aligns Onmae’s work with the “graphic medicine” movement, initially developed in Anglophone contexts at the intersection of medicine, the medical humanities, and comics. Graphic medicine—a term proposed by physician Ian Williams—refers to the use of comics to explore experiences of illness, caregiving, and clinical practice, as well as to facilitate communication and reflection among patients, medical profes-sionals, and scholars. Emerging in the late 2000s alongside the growth of the medical humanities, the field highlights the value of narrative, empathy, and visual storytelling in healthcare. Comics in this context are used not only as personal illness narratives but also as educational tools, clinical reflections, and collaborative projects involving patients and caregivers.

Compared to some representative works of Western graphic medicine—such as Brian Fies’s Mom’s Cancer (2006) or Ellen Forney’s Marbles (2012)—Onmae’s work might feel like a very “Japanese” manga to English-language readers, not only in its stylistic and visual conventions but also in its deep focus on emotion. From the very first scene, Onmae layers diegetic dialogue with the protagonist’s private thoughts, presented in inset boxes within panels, to convey her interiority. These inset boxes within panels are not used for the author’s explanatory narration, as is common in many English-language graphic medicine works, but rather for revealing the character’s secret feelings to the reader, not other characters. These techniques, cultivated in shojo and josei manga by women artists, share the protagonist’s thoughts directly with the reader, creating an intimate psychological connection and ultimately immersing the reader in the protagonist’s emotional landscapes.

At the outset of the manga’s serialization, Onmae announced that the protagonist and other patients undergoing treatment would not die in the narrative. This choice reflects her concern for readers who have cancer or whose family members are facing serious illness, as well as her ethical stance as an artist: she does not want to use death as a dramatic climax. Instead, the work focuses on what it means to live—not merely to survive—with a serious illness. In an interview, Onmae noted that one of the central motifs is isolation—or more precisely, the effort not to isolate a patient. While the manga initially introduces the protagonist as a mature, self-reli-ant adult, a “single woman without children” determined to not be a burden to others, as she renews old relationships and begins new ones, she finds small moments of happiness in everyday life. By foregrounding relationality and ordinary experience, the series moves beyond conventional illness narratives, avoiding typical restitution, chaos, or quest patterns and “fighting cancer” storylines, and instead offers a nuanced exploration of living within a community.

Good Morning, Good Night, and See You Tomorrow. offers English-language readers a rare work that transcends the boundaries of graphic medicine to explore fundamental questions of how we live. In its emphasis on the relational nature of serious illness, it is able to speak to anyone who has experienced loneliness or sought meaning in everyday moments. The manga does not provide easy answers or miraculous cures; rather, it offers subtle guidance on navigating vulnerability, accepting help without losing autonomy, and finding small joys in the ordinary even under extraordinary pressure. The protagonist’s journey—from isolation to reconnection, and from strict self-reliance to gradual acceptance of interdependence—shows how identity and connection can be built through relationships.

The title itself acts as a gentle instruction. These simple greetings, repeated daily, enact quiet courage and hope. They acknowledge uncertainty while affirming continuity while reaching toward connection, and remind readers that life unfolds day by day through small rituals and ordinary moments. With Onmae’s skillful visual storytelling, the manga shows that profound insight often emerges not from dramatic revelation but from attentive engagement with everyday life; even amid illness, readers who feel alone or seek small joys can share the protagonist’s emotional world, finding warmth, courage, and a sense of connection through its hand-drawn art.

Shige “CJ” Suzuki is a manga researcher and Associate Professor of Japanese and Comparative Literature at Baruch College, City University of New York.

This review was originally written and shared as part of Onmae Moka’s MINT Project promotional booklet, now shared directly on Graphic Medicine with their permission.