Halfway There is an emotional, inspiring graphic memoir by comic artist Christina Mari (Diary of a Tokyo Teen) about her own experience with depression while attending college in Tokyo.
Christine was born in Tokyo to a Japanese mother and an American father and was called "all kinds of different things" growing up: "mixed/ half/ wasian/ halfie/ hapa/ hafu." At five, she moved to the States; at 19, she returned to Tokyo to attend college. But Christine continues to struggle with her identity--she feels "too American to be Japanese and too Japanese to be American." Even though Christine feels alone and her mental health begins to decline, her mother's mother, Baba, works to prove her love for the young woman. Christine, often apologetic for her lack of Japanese, is still comforted by Baba's loving, tender words: "Maybe you don't think I know you that well... I know you."
Mari's artistic depiction of depression is stunning. The entire graphic novel is illustrated in a purple-hued grayscale that uses stark black to magnify Christine's loneliness and her all-consuming internal crisis. The author uses the book's format to enhance emotions: she fills a single page with a crowd full of people, Christine screaming at its center; on pages with panels, the boxes scatter, change shape, or shrink. Pops of red and pink are sprinkled throughout and become especially meaningful on the graphic novel's single full-color page, which depicts Christine and Baba standing by a cherry blossom tree. The cherry tree suggests the importance of understanding that moments of beauty and joy may be brief, but they will return. --Kharissa Kenner, library media specialist, Churchill School and Center