Loneliness is a normal, most human emotion, and the beautiful visual novel Be Missed and Remembered: The Letter from Mayoiga tackles this subject with utmost care and respect.
The reality of unemployment is cruel. It often leaves people cast aside by society at large, unable to know others and forced into solitude. The cruellest part is that, according to economic theories such as NAIRU, some level of unemployment is considered necessary for the economy to function without accelerating inflation.
Why does a review of a visual novel about mythology and the human nature of loneliness talk about these subjects? Because at its heart, Be Missed and Remembered: The Letter from Mayoiga is a game about being forced to exist outside of society.
Readers follow a couple of siblings who meet the mysterious Susu, the master of the Mayoiga. She lives a lonely life, partly because the Mayoiga only surfaces once every three to seven years, and partly because of its curse. Besides that, the master stops ageing and needs no food or water; anyone who interacts with her or the Mayoiga remembers only once they are further than two meters apart.
This makes it impossible for Susu to form meaningful human connections, and the worst part is that being the master of the Mayoiga is a fate bestowed upon young women from an early age, as if time itself has stopped. It is a purgatorial state that echoes the isolation many young people feel today.
Unemployment, especially among the younger generation, is high in many parts of the world. Many people withdraw from society, a phenomenon known as hikikomori. This leads to extreme loneliness and a feeling of being an outcast, which is where Be Missed and Remembered: The Letter from Mayoiga resonates so strongly.
As is so typical in the works of Tomo Kataoka, these tragedies are depicted with both melancholy and hopefulness. This creates a truly empathic representation that gives readers a sense of hope. Not the false hope that the media loves to echo that everything will magically be solved, but the true spirit of hope that there are still things to enjoy in the world.
Throughout the story, the lonely Susu gets to know these siblings, who try to make her life as good as possible. Readers follow them on typical summer adventures, with late-night radio listening and hikes, plus research on how to handle Susu’s condition.
It is beautiful and captures both the joy of summer and the melancholy of that one friend who has nothing to return to once autumn comes. If and how this situation is resolved is best left to discover for oneself. However, the journey there is magical and brings back memories of youth.
The way Be Missed and Remembered: The Letter from Mayoiga manages to capture the feeling of the era in which it takes place is wonderful. There are small details everywhere that capture the setting. The first one that stood out was the t-shirt the male lead, Naofuyu, wears, referring to the Apollo moon landing back in 1969. However, the most significant one, and which becomes a massive part of the story, is the late-night radio shows that were extremely popular back before the internet became huge. This reviewer has nostalgic memories of listening to these herself in childhood on nights when it was hard to sleep.
Details like these give life and realism to a story that tackles supernatural subjects. This is important, as always with the works of Kataoka, because they carry ageless themes. The story uses this heavily, taking the reader through many eras to show how society has evolved and how the role of the master of the Mayoiga has changed over time. It is a theme that sadly sometimes overstays its welcome. While these stories do intertwine with what is happening in the “current” time, they can sometimes pull the reader out of what is currently on their mind. This can make it easy to want to skip entire chapters to get back to the burning question: “what will happen next?”. Doing so will be a mistake, as these chapters are well written; don’t get this wrong, but they do somewhat pull the reader out of the moment.
When this going back and forth between ages is done well, it is done really well. It foreshadows certain things beautifully, so that when something happens, the reader knows what’s up. The fact that there are sections when this is done well is a great testament to how engaging a story Be Missed and Remembered: The Letter from Mayoiga truly is. It does not have to rely on suspense or cliffhangers to make the reader turn the pages. The depictions of human nature are enough. This is something the writing team should have relied more on, as the few cliffhangers that exist make the reader want to skip the chapter between them and the resolution.
