For most English-language manga readers, “Nio Nakatani” is synonymous with “yuri.” That's largely because, prior to this release, all that's been translated into English have been her contributions to the Éclair yuri anthologies and her series Bloom Into You. While these do admittedly make up the bulk of her professionally published works (she has been active as a doujinshi artist as well), Farewell to My Alter proves that she's not a creator to pigeonhole, with stories that cover multiple genres while exploring themes of identity and humanity.

The works in this slim volume are presented in chronological order, making for an interesting survey of Nakatani's evolution as a creator. All of the stories from Éclair are included, which does mean that you aren't getting tons of new content here, but putting them in context with Nakatani's other works, as well as having them all in one book, does make it more worthwhile than you might expect. (And if you were only interested in Nakatani's contributions to the anthology series, you're really in luck with this release.) Again, it's striking that only the middle stories are yuri, and we can see her growing more comfortable with the genre as they unfold.

While all five of them are good, the first and last are perhaps the most interesting. Happiness in the Shape of a Scar, about two high school girls who are only truly able to form a relationship after one of them is injured, is a story that definitely benefits from rereading. At first blush it reads almost like a cruel romance – Torii is attracted to her classmate Kai, but unreasonably irritated by Kai's lone wolf tendencies, as well as the fact that Kai doesn't appear to see any need to change. The only time she can really carefully observe Kai is when she's playing the piano, and Torii's irritation shifts to jealousy of the instrument. We can't say for certain whether it's guilt or joy that truly motivates Torii's real approach to Kai, which happens after Kai is hit by a car, breaking her fingers, after Torii has been fantasizing about Kai being unable to play the piano anymore. She isn't entirely convinced that she didn't somehow create Kai's accident simply by wishing, and that adds a shade of uncertainty to their eventual romance. It's an oddly nuanced piece, not fully comfortable with itself, but that's what makes it so interesting to read over again to try and figure things out, much like how Torii is attempting to sort out her own feelings.

In contrast, Double Bed, the final Éclair anthology piece, is much more comfortable with itself and its themes. It follows an adult lesbian couple who have been inching towards forever with hesitant steps. Ayumu, the more outgoing of the two, is willing to go along with whatever makes Michi comfortable, but Michi herself is hesitant about what she wants. But unlike with Kai and Torii, Michi knows what her issues are; she just needs time to really think them through. She was slower to want to move in with Ayumu, and when they did, she wasn't ready for them to buy a double bed or even a two-person futon – that little bit of space between their beds symbolized for her the fact that she could still back out, that nothing had been irreparably changed. Now they're thinking about buying a house or a bigger apartment, Michi is once again hesitating; hiding, to a degree, behind the idea of finances. But looking at that small space between their futons and realizing that she resents it gives her the impetus to move forward, both in her life and her relationship. It's in some ways a complete journey, going from Kai and Torii's awkward and uncomfortable start to Michi and Ayumu's affirmation of love and building a life together, and that's a major benefit of reading the stories here rather than spread out over five anthologies.

The other two pieces worth mentioning are the first, Farewell to My Alter, and the last, I Want to be Kind. Again, there's an interesting symmetry with these two works, one of which was Nakatani's very first professionally published piece and the other written for this collection. Both deal with death and coping with it, as well as how we shape ourselves into the people we want to be, although they approach the themes from very different angles. In Farewell to My Alter, we meet a set of identical twins at the funeral of one of them. The dead twin's name isn't stated, instead appearing as blacked-out text, and we soon learn that that's because the twins were almost unnaturally close. They switched places almost daily, so that no one could say who was really Ruriko and who was Hariko – possibly even they themselves. But as time went on, it became clear that somehow Ruriko ended up being the more desirable identity; her classes were more interesting, her activities more fun. Although the girls didn't fight over the identity per se, it was becoming more and more likely to cause a rift between them – something that comes to a head just before one twin dies in an accident. Only one person besides the surviving twin knows which one really died, and the story ends on a mildly unsettling note of the surviving twin having “stolen” her dead sister's life – and that maybe a piece of her was relieved that now nothing, and no one, would ever really come between them.

I Want to be Kind, on the other hand, follows two students in a class where someone has committed suicide. Neither of them was close to the deceased, but both are uncomfortable with that fact, as well as the way that they're reacting to her death. For one, outpourings of grief feel hypocritical, especially from a class that didn't seem to care about her when she was alive. For the other, a sense that she ought to have tried harder to reach out to the dead girl have her almost penitent in her actions. The only thing they can agree on is that there was a lack of kindness, and that that is what drives both of their feelings. It was a failure to understand what both of them almost see as an ongoing failure that drives them, and like the surviving characters in the first story, they are mired in their complicated – and yet somehow simple – feelings as they are forced to reckon with who they are and who they want to be.

If there is a theme in this book, that's it. Even in the standard RPG-inspired fantasy piece and the magic realism story about literally eating your feelings, there's a real sense of characters who are struggling with who and what they are and how they feel about that. As themes go, it's solid, and each story is an interesting variation on it and a worthwhile read – even the weaker ones like Comm-ear-ication. Whether you're a fan of Bloom Into You or the Éclair books, this is worth picking up. Nio Nakatani is a creator we should all keep an eye on.